Dating the final IE unity

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

I wrote:
<<Mycenaean (1200BC), Sanskrit (1000BC?) and Latin (500BC).  How
'differentiated' are those three languages? >>

In a message dated 2/8/00 4:20:02 AM, JoatSimeon at aol.com replied:
<<About as different from each other as the Romance languages today... Which
is to say, with separation somewhere in the 1000 to 2000 years range.>>

This is interesting.   2000yrs from modern Romance language back to Latin?

2000 yrs from Myceanaean, Sanskrit and Latin back to what?

PIE? Not likely.  Because even if Mycenean, Sanskrit and Latin were as
'undifferentiated' as is claimed above, this group hardly represents the full
range of differences that emerge out of the darkness of 4000 years, are they?

Do the similarities between Latin and Hittite 'leap off the page" as you say?
 (Please recall how long it took for relationship to even be detected.)

And what does Hittite (for starters) add to the total 'differentiation'
between the first attested PIE languages?  If 2000 years separates Latin and
Sanskrit, Hittite should certainly add another 2000 years, wouldn't you say?

That would put you at (1000BC minus 2000 minus 2000 more) 5000BC.  And of
course, the differentiation between the languages above and Tocharian,
Luwian, the undecipherable Thracian, Albanian and Celtiberian should send
your date of dispersal hurtling back to that magic 7000BC you've mentioned so
frequently.

Or do all these languages decline <fire> with only a change in the initial
vowel and do they all have the same name for their principle god - thus
justifying a 2000 year separation between all of them.

JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:
<<the word for "fire" in Sanskrit and Latin:
Nom. sing.      agnis           ignis
acc. sing.      agnim           ignem
dative          agnibhyas       ignibus

Latin and Greek still used nearly the same term for their principle god:
Juppiter/Zeus Pater.>>

BTW, would you know if <zeus pater> appears in Mycenaean?  Or when the phrase
first appears in Greek?

Regards,
Steve Long