IE "Urheimat" and evidence from Uralic linguistics

[Ante Aikio]

On Mon, 31 Jan 2000, Hans Holm wrote:

(I wrote:)
>>There is a misunderstanding here. We are -not- dealing [with random
phono-semantic look-alikes between proto-IE and proto-U]

(Hans Holm asked:)
> .. who is 'we'?

"We" is everyone who is dealing with the putative PIE loan words in
Uralic. So that includes also you.

(HH cited me:)
>>precisely -
>>radically
>>has already been found out
>>all of them have failed
>>this has not been succesful

I fail to see the point in citing these words from my mail without their
proper context. If you wish to maintain this discussion at a sensible
level, please quote me properly.

(HH asked:)
> E.g. it is much more likely for a
> cultural concept like 'wheel' to be borrowed - as opposed to 'water',
> isn't it?

I couldn't agree more. But so what? It is obviously true that a word for
e.g. 'cappuchino', 'neutron bomb' or 'virtual reality' is more easily
borrowed than one for 'water'. But, for the third and last time, this does
ABSOLUTELY NOT imply that a word for 'water' cannot be borrowed.

(I wrote:)
>>Of course, it is impossible to -prove- (...) that the lexical similarities
>>are not due to common genetic origin.  But then, it is impossible to
>>disprove -any- proposed genetic relationship.

(HH replied:)
> .. Here we can agree. But:
> "Relationship" is _always and only_ a question of degrees and ways. Just
> try to calculate the number of _unrelated_ ancestors for you or me before
> 10^n generations or years and your calculator will soon respond with
> 'overflow'.

This has nothing to do with relationships between languages. The genetic
relationships between biological organisms and "genetic" relationships
between languages are not analogous. A human, a horse, a latimeria or
whatever has always two immediate ancestors, but a language (with the
exception of creoles) has precisely ONE. Thus, a genetic relationship
between two languages is not a question of degree, but of time depth.

(I wrote:)
>>Because of this, the task of proving belongs to those who propose a
>>genetic relationship, and this has not been succesful for proto-Indo-
>>Uralic or Nostratic.

(HH asked:)
> .. you know everything about that to be so sure?

I know enough of the Nostratic hypothesis to say that there is little that
distinguishes it from wishful thinking. However, I am not interested in
entering any thorough discussion concerning the validity of this
hypothesis, and I believe this is also outside the subject matter of this
list. Those who are actively interested in Nostratic linguistics can of
course discuss this question in other forums.

(I wrote:)
>>these contain at least 30 proto-IE loans, I'd say that chance
>>correspondence is ruled out

(HH replied:)
> .. nobody denies that there are loans IE -> P-U, or? The conditions of
> these contacts were object of a conference held in Finland, published by
> Julku/Wiik 1998 at Turku "The Roots of Peoples and Languages of Northern
> Eurasia".

I am not familiar with this publication, but I know the views of Julku and
Wiik quite well. It should be pointed out here that neither of these
retired professors is a Uralist (Wiik is a phonetician and Julku a
historian), and their fanciful theories concerning the origin and
development of the U and IE languages have next to no support among
Uralists. There isn't a single linguist in Finland who conforms with Julku
and Wiik's views; on the contrary, J and W have received severe and
justified criticism from specialists in Uralic linguistics, as well as
Finnish IE-ists and Germanists.

A final note concerning your message: I am not interested in continuing
this kind of indescreet discussion. When you have some serious linguistic
argumentation to support your views with, and are ready to discuss in a
matter-of-fact manner, come back and talk.

 - Ante Aikio