Renfrew's Celtic Scenario

[Stanley Friesen]

At 04:33 AM 2/11/00 -0500, X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:
>Linguistically, the American Atlantic coast is certainly not speaking the
>same English it did in 1615, but it is still clearly English.

Yes.  And now add another 500 years of change.  I predict that in rather
*less* than another 500 years, most people will find the writings from 1615
to be incomprehensible.

>When Barlowe describes the Native Americans living on the Outer Banks in
>1588, it's in an English that is plainly readable today.

Today, yes.  500 years from today, I seriously doubt.

And this with modern roads.

>If one can picture a slower rate of change than the 19th and 20th Centuries
>gave us, it is not hard to see a small number of "peripherally conservative"
>colonists slowly weening themselves from the traditions they carried from the
>Danube.

Unfortunately, nobody has ever observed language change *much* slower than
this.  (Perhaps Greek, but I am not certain even that was all that much
slower).

>  And that slowness first of all was a matter of slow initial
>population expansion which only changes about 4600BC

Actually, that would *accelerate* local language change!  These widely
separated small settlements would have almost no contacts beyond the local
area.  Each grouping would tend to develop more or less separately in the
absence of regular contact. People in a handful of small settlements in the
middle of an area otherwise populated by speakers of other languages would
tend to pick up many language features from their immediate neighbors.  It
was really only the increase in English settlement in NA that stabilized
the language enough so that it is still recognizable.

> - despite what
>JoatSimeon at aol.com has been writing, I still only find for example a single
>Bandkeramik settlement in modern France before 5000BC.

Which, if true, almost *ensures* that the language of its people would
diverge rapidly!

>and the local "technocomplexes" start to come up all over.  There are some
>new more general practices like megaliths that show up, but most innovation
>is local.

The problem with associating the megaliths with IE peoples is that no IE
myths or legends show *any* comprehension of the purpose or origin of them!
 All known IE myths about them are of the "fantastic" nature, none show any
trace of any older tradition continuous from their origin.

This suggests that even the immediate predecessors of the IE peoples had
forgotten what they were for, and who built them.

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