GREEK PREHISTORY AND LANGUAGE

[Stanley Friesen]

At 10:23 AM 10/15/99 -0400, Sean Crist wrote:
>In fairness to Renfrew, *ekwos is not probative.  It's true that the horse
>had not been domesticated at the early date for PIE unity which Renfrew
>postulates; but you need not have domesticated the horse to have a word
>for it.  The PIE speakers could have been hunting wild horses for their
>meat, for example.

This could be a bit tricky - did the wild horse have a range corresponding
to the extent of IE speakers postulated by Renfrew prior to its
domestication?  I cannot remember if the quagga extended into northern
Europe.  And even if it did, it is not clear it would be given the same
name as _Equus caballus_ (or its wild antecedents).

Without a locally present animal to apply the word to, it would be expected
to either die out or be transferred to some other animal.  If the latter
occurred it would not now have the uniformity of meaning it in fact has.
(Look at what happened to some of the tree names in areas where the
original tree was not present).

There is also the word for "metal" or "copper", which indicates a
post-neolithic culture for the PIE speakers.

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May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com