IE "Urheimat" and evidence from Uralic linguistics

[Stanley Friesen]

At 02:29 PM 2/4/00 -0500, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:
>-- catastrophe is the norm of history.  Eg., the rise of the Zulu kingdom
>(due to purely indigenous developments) killed half the population of South
>Africa, caused other upheavals like the Kololo migration which changed the
>language of the Upper Zambezi to a Sotho dialect from 1000 miles southwards,
>and sent Nguni-speaking war bands marauding as far north as Lake Victoria --
>all within a single generation, all on foot, ...

These incidents bring up one source of evidence for past population
movements that I think make it clear this has been happening in the
Americas for a *very* long time.  The sequences above resulted in a
scrambling or intertwining of languages from disparate language families.

A look at the map of the distribution of language families in the Americas,
even *after* backing out the changes attributable to European incursions,
is very informative in this regard.  Most language families are so
scattered and disjoint in distribution as to defy any simple analysis.
This is especially true in South America, but even in NA, the presence of
relatives of the Algonquian family near the *west* coast (Yurok and Wiyot),
the odd distribution of Uto-Azrecan, and the existence of broad areas where
"no one family is dominant" are clear signs of major pre-colonial movements.

For instance, I suspect that the spread of the Siouan languages (including
the Iowa, Mandan, and the Kansa-Omaha group) to their earliest historical
locations in the Wisconsin-Indiana-Missouri area relate to the break-up of
the Hopewell and/or Adena cultures.  (The Mississippian Culture may be
associated with the Muskogean or Caddoan family).

>Not to mention that the Germanics had been expanding at the expense of
>Celtic-speakers for centuries before the Romans came along; as a matter of
>fact, it was Caesar who forced them out of Gaul and back across the Rhine.
>What's now Southern Germany and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland was
>once Celtic-speaking territory.

In fact I think this area includes the most likely Celtic homeland.

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