Dating the final IE unity

[Ross Clark]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

>>> Hans Holm <Hans_Holm at h2.maus.de> 02/02 8:19 AM >>>

>JS>This requires either no change, or perfectly synchronized change, in pre-
>JS>Celtic across thousands of miles, ...

>.. I propose "little change". And there are much more examples.

>JS>, ... for 4000 years.  Which is in blatant violation of everything we know
>JS>about languages and how they develop.

>.. Is it? This is an IE group, but if we take a look beyond our IE nose,
>e.g. to Australia, we find about 70 % covered by speakers of Pama-Nyungan,
>the languages/dialects of which are regarded as very closely related. And
>archeologists now redate the first settlements back to more than 50.000
>years (for a up-to-date overview see Stringer in Antiquity 73/99:876). Of
>course these must not be the direct predecessors of Pama-Nyungan.

Apart from the highly uncertain claim that the common ancestor of Pama-Nyungan
goes back to the first human settlement of Australia, the description of these
languages as "very closely related" is extremely misleading. They could be
considered closely related only by contrast to the highly diverse (lexically
and typologically) other families of the north and west of Australia. Consider
just the immediate neighbours of Dyirbal, as described by Dixon: Yidin (27%
shared vocabulary), Mbabaram (18%), Warungu (47%), Wargamay (60%)

>Back to IE: Renfrew's farmers in Ireland must not have been direct
>predecessors of Gaelic speakers, at least their language must not at all
>have been a predecessor.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Hans J. Holm, Meckauerweg 18, D-30629 Hannover
 Tel=FAX x49-511-9585714.