IE "Urheimat" and evidence from Uralic linguistics

[Hans Holm]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

AA>There is a misunderstanding here. We are -not- dealing

.. who is 'we'?

AA>precisely -
AA>radically
AA>has already been found out
AA>all of them have failed
AA>this has not been succesful

.. ?
aha...

Besides: There are some more arguments required to "prove" borrowing.
(See Anttila e.g. 89 for details). E.g. it is much more likely for a
cultural concept like 'wheel' to be borrowed - as opposed to 'water',
isn't it?

AA>Of course, it is impossible to -prove- (...) that the lexical similarities
AA>are not due to common genetic origin.  But then, it is impossible to
AA>disprove -any- proposed genetic relationship.

.. Here we can agree. But:
"Relationship" is _always and only_ a question of degrees and ways. Just
try to calculate the number of _unrelated_ ancestors for you or me before
10^n generations or years and your calculator will soon respond with
'overflow'.

AA>Because of this, the task of proving belongs to those who propose a
AA>genetic relationship, and this has not been succesful for proto-Indo-
AA>Uralic or Nostratic.

.. you know everything about that to be so sure?

AA>these contain at least 30 proto-IE loans, I'd say that chance
AA>correspondence is ruled out

.. nobody denies that there are loans IE -> P-U, or? The conditions of
these contacts were object of a conference held in Finland, published by
Julku/Wiik 1998 at Turku "The Roots of Peoples and Languages of Northern
Eurasia".

or see e.g. LCampbell in Diachronica VII-2/1990:174. There are indeed some
serious attempts.

Mit freundlichen Grüszen
  Hans J Holm
  - - et monere et moneri - -