the Wheel and Dating PIE

[Eduard Selleslagh]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

----- Original Message -----
From: <JoatSimeon at aol.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2000 10:19 AM

>> X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

>> You wrote:
>  <<The ONLY way to account for the very existence of the word in nearly every
>>> branch of Indo-European (Indo-Iranian, Hellenic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic,
>>> Italic, and Tocharian)is that the word was borrowed when PIE was still a
>>> unity.  Unless the word was borrowed when PIE was a unity, then there is no
>>> other way to account for this widespread occurrence in the family.>>

>> Well the wheel is one way, isn't it?  I mean the actual wheel.  Like the
>> computer or the telephone or the automobile.  That would account for the
>> word being so widespread, wouldn't it?  I certainly don't see any geographic
>> or other necessity that would make it difficult.

> -- we're talking about the WORD.  If the word was borrowed or invented
> _before_ PIE split up, it would develop according to the usual sound laws for
> each of the daughter languages.

> If introduced afterwards, it would not.   What is difficult about this?

> In point of fact, there's no question that the first eventuality -- the word
> for "wheel" being present before the dispersal of PIE -- is what actually
> happened.

[Ed Selleslagh]
Actually various words, as you state in your next mail.

But: all these words seem to have had different original meanings
(*kwekwlo/'round, circle', *rotho/'revolve', *droghos (trochos-tropos)/'turn
(back)'...). Different languages (or groups) picked different pre-existing
words to describe the wheel, chariots, wagons etc.

So, the linguistic spread of these words is not necessarily (in my view NOT)
related to spread of the 'wheel technology' nor to its dating. If the
technology had been responsible for the spread of the word(s), it is likely
that all IE lgs. would have adopted the same word, quod non. Such a hypothesis
also leads to a - possibly not reconcilable - dating of the synchronous spread
of both the technology and the word(s).

Ed.