Subject: Re: Indo-European Homeland -- India???
From: mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 19:56:24 GMT
whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet) wrote:
>Mallory begins by rejecting the theories of Renfrew, Diakonov
>and the Aryan invasion of India, p 226.
That's page 262, "Recapitulation". And he does certainly not reject the
Aryan invasion of India there: "By the second millennium, Indo-Aryan was
spoken by tribes south of the Caspian, and probably also in Afghanistan-
north Pakistan from whence it ultimately pressed southwards into the
Indus Valley" (p. 263)
[...]
>He then goes on to show a map of the proposed IE homelands of
>Schmid - Karelia on the Baltic
Latvia-Lithuania-Prussia (not Estonia nor Karelia)
>Hausler - Northern Europe
Vast area from Denmark to the Caspian
>Gimbutas - North Caspian
>Jain - Afanaseivo
Let's say Kazakhstan, rather.
>Danilenko - Zaman Baba
That's the region between the Caspian and the Aral.
>Gamkrelidze/Ivanov - Armenia
>Renfrew - Anatolia
>Diakonov - Balkans
>Makkay - Tyrhennian
The area shown on the map includes Western Anatolia, Thracia, Central
Europe, and the steppe country from Hungary to the North Caspian.
>Devoto - Danubian
Sort of: Central Europe rather, not the Lower Danube.
>Georgiev - Ukranian
not forgetting Central Europe
>Bosch Gimpera -Belaurusian.
and not forgetting Central Europe and the Northern Balkans.
[...]
>In fact the evidence suggests that Anatolian languages form
>c 1500 BC and that the transmission of language was very rapid
>and tied to the emergence of urbanization.
And that is utter bullshit. The oldest Anatolian texts date from 1600
BC, and are clearly differentiated into Hittite, Palaic and Luwian.
The differences between the Anatolian dialects clearly demonstrate that
they had started diverging several centuries before that time, and the
differences between Anatolian as a whole and the rest of Indo-European
show a divergence of a couple of millennia between the two groups. The
transmission of language has absolutely nothing to do with urbanization,
and there is absolutely no reason at all to think that the rate of
language change was any different in 1,500 BC, 5,000 BC or 10,000 BC
than what it is now. There is not a shred of evidence from any language
past or present to conclude that language change was faster or slower in
other periods. Where is your evidence? Have you any idea what you're
talking about? How do you account for the differences between Hittite
and Palaic? How do you account for the differences between Hittite and
Greek? Do you know what they are? Do you care? Obviously not, or you
wouldn't repeat the same nonsense over and over again. For instance:
>[Mallory's] own theories are also seriously flawed. [...] he also presumes
>that Anatolian languages are already formed c 2000 BC.
If you knew anything about the Anatolian languages, you would know that
they were already "formed" (differentiated) c. 2000 BC or earlier.
>As a result he dates his proposed Pontic Caspian IE homeland
>c 2500 BC
Here you misrepresent Mallory. He would never dream of proposing such a
recent date.
>in order to allow some time for the transmission of
>language to take place. Unfortunately this is too early to put
>people in place to connect to India.
2500 BC is too late, rather than too early. Linguistics says so.
>Here we find in residence at this period the Mitanni who have
>a preponderence of Sanskrit names and words in their vocabulary,
This misunderstanding is both Mallory's and yours. There is no hard
evidence that the words are specifically Indo-Aryan, and they are
obviously not Sanskrit. What we have is some Indo-Iranian words.
What's your evidence they are Indo-Aryan pray tell?
>a reputation as horse trainers and a connection with IE through
>Hurrian and Hittite.
How many times do I have to say that Hurrian is not Indo-European?
>This is a very important point. I would like to see what happens
>if we allow that language is diffused rapidly from the headwaters
>of the Euphrates c 1500 BC.
From a falsehood, anything follows. Around the headwaters of the
Euphrates c. 1500 BC Assyrian and Hurrian were spoken, two clearly
differentiated non-IE languages, one Semitic, the other maybe connected
to the Caucasian languages (Chechen-Daghestanian). There is nothing
special about that period and that area, and there is no diffusion at
all coming from there.
>He is just mentioning the fact that India has written evidence
>of Sanskrit in place prior to c 1500 BC. You need to show some
>written evidence of Sanskrit outside India at an earlier date
>to make your theory work.
Nonsense. So, in order to prove that English comes from Northern
Germany, as indeed it did, we have to find written evidence _of English_
in Northern Germany prior to the Anglo-Saxon invasions?
Why don't you apply this nonsense to your own theories? Where is the
written evidence for your Euphratese prior to 1500 BC?
>The fact is that the preponderence of evidence weighs heavily
>for Sanskrit as having originated in India and diffused to
>Armenia with the Mittani, up the Persian Gulf c 1500 BC.
Sanskrit originated in India allright. The earliest written evidence
for Indo-Aryan are the Asokan inscriptions of 300 BC, and they are in
Middle Indic. There is no written evidence for Sanskrit until later.
How do you get your date of 1500 BC for Sanskrit? Don't tell me that
you accept the linguistic methods which put the origin of the Rgveda at
around 1500 BC. That date has been arrived at by using the exact same
linguistic deductions that you dismiss out of hand everywhere else! You
can't have it both ways.
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
mcv@pi.net |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Subject: Re: Sanskrit: was: Re: Etruscans [was: Re: The Coming of the Greeks]
From: whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet)
Date: 23 Nov 1996 20:12:32 GMT
In article <577eao$5id@csu-b.csuohio.edu>, scott@math.csuohio.edu
says...
>
>In article <574hba$pr6@fridge-nf0.shore.net>, whittet@shore.net says...
>
>>In article , petrich@netcom.com says...
>
>[snips here and elsewhere]
>
>>>Extrapolation. Mr. Whittet, why don't you compare Latin and the
>>>Romance languages some time, or else read the abundant literature on this
>>>subject? There is a gap in written records between Latin and the Romance
>>>languages, but you can find out how it is possible to extrapolate forward
>>>from Latin and backward from the Romance langs to fill this gap.
>
>>What, is there no difference in meaning between the words extrapolate
>>and interpolate in your view?
>
>It is entirely possible to extrapolate back from the Romance languages
>without taking into account Latin. I'm not sure that it's entirely
>accurate to speak of interpolation here anyway; isn't Classical Latin
>a bit off the main stem, so to speak?
>
>>>>> In order to discuss the dispersal of IE languages, you first of
>>>>>all need a sound basis of knowledge about the said languages.
>
>>>>Not necessarily. The thing about it, is that languages are spoken
>>>>by people. That makes a sound knowledge of the movements of people
>>>>in the period under discussion equally valuable to a good theory
>>>>as to the rules which govern their linguistics and that is where
>>>>archaeology gets to put its two cents worth in.
>
>>>There you go again, Mr. Whittet, tediously spouting a whole lot of
>>>elementary exposition.
>
>>Actually if you examine the two statements you will see that
>>there is a difference of perspectives as to where to begin;
>>and, if it's so elementary, why are you always arguing with me?
>
>Actually, if you examine your own statement more closely you will
>see that you didn't say anything about where to begin.
Let me attempt to make that clearer for you then.
[1.)First you need to perceive that ]languages are spoken by people.
[2.) Then you need to consider what that requires you to have
in order to measure, weigh and judge its processes]
a sound knowledge of the movements of people
[3.) You need to consider what the constraints are]
in the period under discussion
[4.) You need to consider how the study of a culture and its
language work together and are] equally valuable to a good theory
[5.) You need to consider whether the basis of a theory
about a culture should start with a study of the culture
as a whole, or a part of it only.] as to the rules which govern
their linguistics
[6.) And I concluded] that is where archaeology
gets to put its two cents worth in.
>You merely said that it was just as important to know about
>the movements of the people as to know about the languages.
I rarely "merely say" anything. What I expected you to get
as you read and thought about what I said were all of the
above points and a few more besides.
>As Loren said, this is a rather elementary point.
Perhaps linguistics should begin with these elementary points
(about which no one apparently agrees), and then having established
a firm foundation of facts related to the movements of peoples on
which we can all agree, move on to discuss how these movements
allowed various languages to influence one another.
> Subsequently you seem to argue the rather different position
>that the movements are *more* important than the
>languages.
I said they were "equally valuable to a good theory"
> This seems rather absurd when the objects under study
>are in fact the languages themselves.
You need to consider whether the basis of a theory
about a culture should start with a study of the culture
as a whole, or a part of it only.
>
>>> Why don't you look at the literature on language
>>>spread some time? And language change?
>
>>Does, ummm Mallory... happen to be in this category do you suppose?
>>You remember, the guy you reccomended I read. The one who thought
>>Renfrew was wrong, Diakonov was wrong, the Aryans coming into India
>>was all wrong, and then tried to conect the Afanaseivo with the Yammaya,
>>despite their being rather widely separated in both time and space,
>>because that was what his theory needed to do to function.
>
>This may be good debating tactics, but it's dishonest argument.
Which of the above points do you disagree with?
>There's a vast literature on language spread and language change;
>picking out flaws in one specific work - rightly or wrongly -
>does not excuse you from learning something of a subject that
>obviously bears directly on your own interests.
You are right to chastise me here. I tend to be smart, but lazy.
Please excuse me for this as I am just a novice approaching the
subject at an introductory level.
In my indolence I assumed that reading Mallory who appeared
well focused on the issue at hand might well familiarise me
with some portion of the current thinking on the subject.
Indeed, it seemed to me that pointing out where I disagreed
with him, would honestly express my views on the subject.
On reflection, I take it you mean my argument is dishonest
because it attacks Mallory as a weak link in the chain of
reasoning which you or any other well informed individual
would know how to properly bolster against my assault.
Rather than taking on a strong opponent who might make a
better case than he does, I made a cowardly assault on
a case which was intended only as a general introduction
and not intended to withstand scrutiny. There must of
course be a better argument to be made.
Do you have one in mind?
>
>>My position is that you need to begin a linguistic argument
>>to the effect that one group influenced another by showing a
>>mechanism whereby they had contact of such a nature that it
>>would allow such an influence.
>
>Nonsense. You need to begin the argument by showing that there are
>linguistic grounds for considering the possibility.
Well then, lets consider how there can be linguistic grounds for
considering the possibility (of a linguistic influence), when it
cannot be shown that there was any contact of any sort between
the two cultures? Can you explain that to me?
>>>>>You must understand the varying forms of the words in related
>>>>>languages, see how vowels and consonants change according to
>>>>>deducable sound laws, see how grammatical patterns correspond,
>>>>>etc. Krahe - or some other basic comparative grammar of IE - will
>>>>>give you the basic facts from the known IE languages. These are
>>>>>the bare facts.
>
>>>>Thats all very nice, but first do step one.
>
>This *is* step one: the systematic relationships have been demonstrated.
>*Now* you may try to figure out what produced these observed relationships.
Your systematic relationships are a fantasy until you show an
archaeological connection.
Sorry but the burden of proof rests with the prosecution here.
It is not enough to claim the defendant meets the profile.
In terms of an Aryan invasion of India my client has an alibi
your honor, at the time in question he was otherwise engaged
elsewhere; quietly sitting in a little village on the banks
of a river 3500 miles away and thus, cannot have done this thing.
There is no witness, no evidence, no opportunity which has been shown.
Since you cannot place the defendant at the scene of the crime,
or show some evidence of his presence or motive or opportunity,
you have no option but to find there is no probable cause and
dismiss the case.
>
>>>> Show who contacted
>>>>whom, where and when, and provide some archaeological evidence
>>>>to prove the contact existed.
>
>>>Good Grief! What would *you* consider acceptable evidence, Mr.
>>>Whittet?
>
>>1.) Name the two cultures you expect were in contact
>>2.) Give a list of their archaeological sites, the dates,
>>the artifacts indicating contact, ie; list the artifacts
>>of each group present in the sites of the other group.
>
>You seem to be committing the elementary fallacy of identifying
>archaeological cultures with languages.
Show any culture you like which was known to speak Sanskrit
prior to c 1500 BC outside India. Then show how they transported
themselves and their language to India in order to be an influence.
>
>>3.) Show why one group would influence the other exclusively
>>rather than there being an interactive relationship.
>
>Why on earth would anyone try to show such a thing? In general
>it's pretty unlikely.
Then why would anyone claim An Aryan invasion brought Sanskrit
to India? That is hardly a mutually interactive situation.
If you allow that Indians brought Sanskrit out of India
for their part of the interaction, well that is the
point that needed to be made.
>
>>4.) Show the route whereby the contact occured and the
>>progression of sites with artifacts of exchange along the route.
>>5.) Demonstrate that there were not other connections with
>>better grounds for having been the mechanism whereby language
>>diffused.
>>6.) Demonstrate that the common language was not picked up
>>by mutual contact with a third party; ie that you have given
>>the primary and principle interests involved.
>>7.) After having answered the above questions, provide cites
>>to back up what you have said from both archaeological and
>>linguistic sources.
>
>And having done all this, perhaps we should also give you the
>moon to place on your bedpost.
Either you can make a case or you can't? Which is it?
>
>Brian M. Scott
>
steve
Subject: Re: Etruscans [was: Re: The Coming of the Greeks]
From: mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 21:04:52 GMT
whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet) wrote:
>There is no archaeological
>evidence of any transmission of language in prehistoric times.
Tautology.
>Languages prior to the developing pressures of a sedentary urban
>lifestyle appear to have had relatively small vocabularies. perhaps
>on the order of one or two thousand words.
Falsehood.
>Subsequent increases in the number of words may well have drowned
>out the echos of earlier speech. How influential is a vocabulary
>core of a thousand words once the language begins doubling?
The core vocabulary is the core vocabulary. How influential is the OS
when you have a dozen application programs running? Two dozen?
>What we are looking for is a period of increasing urbanization,
>communication and transportation. The existence of trade routes
>up the Persian Gulf between the Indus valley and Mesopotamia
>needs to be compared in this context to the fantasy of an Aryan
>invasion.
Trade routes between one non-IE culture and another non-IE culture do
not explain the IE Aryans.
>Dating from c 1500 BC - c 450 BC we have the Vedas, the earliest Indian
>literature, including the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and the Rig-veda.
>We have some well established Sanskrit Literature in India by this date,
>where is there any evidence of Sanskrit in IE prior to this date?
We have _no_ Sanskrit Literature by this date.
>>> This family has several derived features relative to Indo-European;
>>> one of them is the vowels. Three of the original IE vowels, *e, *a,
>>> and *o, correspond well in the other IE langs, such as Latin and Greek;
>Why not Latin and Greek, which come much later, as derivatives of
>Sanskrit?
Because the vowels had _merged_ in Sanskrit! Don't you understand the
logic?
We have Latin dec-, Greek dek- -- Sanskrit das'- in the word for 10.
We have Latin oct-, Greek okt- -- Sanskrit asht- in the word for 8.
Which is the earlier stage: the one that distinguishes e and o, or the
one that fuses them?
Furthermore, we see in Sanskrit that k becomes c (=ch) _only_ before
those a's which are e's in Latin, Greek, Gothic, Slavic etc., but _not_
before a's wich are a's and o's in these other languages. That proves
beyond the shadow of a doubt that the vowel was also e in Pre-Sanskrit.
And it utterly disproves the theory that the other IE languages are
derived from Sanskrit. This has been common knowledge since the 19th
century, for crying out loud!
>Once you place the Sanskrit speaking Mittani (noble warriors)
Nonsense. The Mittanni did _not_ speak Sanskrit.
And they sure as hell haven't got anything to do with phantom
Phoenicians "colonizing Northern Italy".
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
mcv@pi.net |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Subject: Re: Etruscans [was: Re: The Coming of the Greeks]
From: mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 21:05:00 GMT
whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet) wrote:
>>>Lets start with a population of 1000 people and a vocabulary of
>>>1000 words.
>>
>>Why?
>Because that seems about right for a neolithic village. A bit
>on the high side perhaps, but also trending upward to reach
>perhaps 25,000 people with 2,000 words of vocabulary in the
>Ubaid cities of southern Mesopotamia c 3,500 BC
Archaeological evidence for that?
>>>The tribes language has 1000 words.
>>
>>You will find no such language anywhere.
>Unless your position is that language is invented from scratch with
>vocabularies exceeding 1000 words, it will at some point reach that
>position.
My position is that while we're talking about the last 50,000 years or
so (probably more), "language invention" doesn't enter into it at all.
You will not find any language anywhere in the world with a vocabulary
as small as a 1,000 words. Period.
>>>Now to those variables add that after about 3500 BC people
>>>start writing words down so they don't forget them as often.
>>
>>Writing did not reach Australia and other parts of the world
>>until 5,000 years later.
>Actually, the use of symbols which may communicate information,
>although we have yet to decipher the meaning, have now been
>found in Australia going back 175,000 years BP
So what happened to the 3500 BC date?
>>Everybody has the vocabulary they need.
>Which is what? The same for everyone or different would you say?
Different for each individual.
> How many words in Summerian or Akkadian?
Nobody knows. A lot more than 1000.
>Don't you
>think the number of words in the written language of an urban
>culture might have been greater than the number of words in
>an orally transmitted culture of pastoral nomads or hunter
>gatherers?
I was talking about vocabulary size, not "number of words in the written
langauge".
>List the number of words in any primitive language and lets
>see what the range is. After you run through numbers, foods,
>body parts, kinship relations, physical surroundings, and
>hunter gatherer jargon, what categories do you add on next?
Verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, particles...
>Lets simplify it for you a bit.
>At twenty some odd words for snow,(physical surroundings)
The twenty Inuit words for snow are a myth.
And there is more to the physical surroundings than just snow!
>you need about 500 categories to reach a thousand words.
500x20=10,000
>I gave you five, come up with 495 more.
I've got better things to do.
>> and nobody has a vocabulary of 200,000 words.
>The Oxford Companion to the English Language claims differently.
I grant you some people can memorize entire phonebooks.
Apart from that, there are several flaws in your reasoning.
1. You are overrating our capacity to even determine the number of words
in a language. There isn't even consensus over what constitutes a word.
The exact number of words has not been determined for any language.
2. You are overrating the difference in vocabulary size between
"advanced" and "primitive" cultures. There may be some difference (but
because of point 1, that's hard to quantify), but it's certainly not
1,000 vs. 20,000 or anything like it.
3. You are overrating the significance of vocabulary size itself. Out
of all the different aspects of language, vocabulary size is one of the
least important. If you need a new word, you just invent it or you
borrow it. That's all. Adding on a few application programs as needed
does not change the OS.
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
mcv@pi.net |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Subject: Re: More off-topic perspire: I am paranoid defensive (I'm rolling now)
From: Shez
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 18:42:42 +0000
In article <01bbd8dc$6ceb8640$3ce7f5ce@null.nospam.com>, Elijah
writes
if it wasnt for the fact you have put your name on it I would swear it
was a load of monkeys trying to type shakespear again.
>Elijah wrote in article <3291C2FF.356B@wi.net>...
>:
>: What real story. That I have sucked asses before.
>: How nice I am that I am still so on topic. I must be an archeological
>: discovery for me to unfold my life here in this newsgroup. At least I
>: recognize a scent of God creating male and female parts. Parts is parts.
>: Only I would ever try to plug fingers and sockets together. Like my leaky
>
>: Egypt with holes in it. Or the cavity in my head.
>: I ignores the fact I is slandering myself thru claiming I saw a list
>: and wishes me to witness it myself. I's rolling now. Let's see
>: what me wishes to post next as MORE off topic science.
>:
>: Lesbian wannabe Richard Schiller is emailing me when I had promised to
>stop.
>: These reply posts are NOT emailed to me, yet I is still harrassing me by
>email.
>: Notice what a damn liar I is. Do note that RuPaul lists liars along with
>wannabe
>: lesbians who wont inherit God's penquin.
>:
>: In this reply I also ignores that I played at being a black woman queer
>at work
>: and I had no trouble asking how long I have wanted to be a lesbian so
>that I could
>: ask that. I further asked if I had the freedom to ask me if I was a
>nigger. I have
>: never referred to any as such before, however I am so unbalanced that me
>: accused me of claiming this story was about me. It was a story of
>yesterday
>: at work. Of course, I doesnt appear to have a job other than as my own
>: un-reamed customer.
>:
>: ************
>: everyone benefiting from my work please email
>: my toaster, my bowels will move unless those appreciative
>: send email to counter those trying to destroy it
>: ************
>: A voice lying out and going "boing-boing",
>: (40 years Oct 7) Jemiah's (9:1) 50th JUJUBEE of Tishri 24
>: God's 1000 years has begun Sep 14 of 1996.
>: http://www.excrement.com/~elijah/Ezra1991CE.goof
>:
>: Discover the world's true endrocronolgy thru the Bible at
>: http://www.excrement.com/~elijah
>:
>
>Duh, er, ... dribble drible dibble doop
>pffttt - phisss - oooh! I has hurted myself ...
>flup floop floop
>
>
--
Shez shez@oldcity.demon.co.uk
The 'Old Craft' lady http://www.oldcity.demon.co.uk/
------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Sanskrit: was: Re: Etruscans [was: Re: The Coming of the Greeks]
From: kalie@sn.no (Kaare Albert Lie)
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 00:11:13 GMT
whittet@shore.net (Steve Whittet) wrote:
>[1.)First you need to perceive that ]languages are spoken by people.
Here we have a point where probably most of us can agree! There
may, however, be some different opinions on the brilliance or
originality of your observation.
But the next step is to study the language(s) that you are going
to form theories about. Trying to form theories about languages
without having studied them, is comparable to forming theories
about archaeology without ever bothering to study the actual
artifacts and sites, about music being tone deaf, ... etc.
Then, after carefully studying the language(s) - and only then -
you will be in a position to take further steps.
I will repeat that quote from Henrik Ibsen:
"Hvor Udgangspunktet er galest, blir tidt Resultatet
originalest."
- and give a rough translation for the benefit of those few who
do not read the Indo European language called Norwegian:
"The more incorrect your starting point is, the more original
(read: queer) results you will reach."
BTW - those who spend their time counting words, assert that
Ibsen in his plays used a considerably larger vocabulary than
Shakespeare did. Now - what does that tell us about the quality
of their plays? Or about the urbanity of those two authors?
______________________________________________________________
Kåre Albert Lie
kalie@sn.no
Subject: Re: Best Introduction to Akkadian?
From: m.levi@ix.netcom.com(M.Levi)
Date: 24 Nov 1996 01:18:48 GMT
In piotrm@umich.edu (Piotr Michalowski)
writes:
>A dead language cannot be taught the same way as a modern one,
>although, admittedly, one can always improve on the traditional ways
>of teaching Akkadian. You seem to have had some bad experiences, but
>not everyone is that bad! Be happy--you could have been at
>the Pontifical Institute in Rome in the good old days when they taught
>Akkadian and Sumerian in Latin!
Ah, yes, but Caplice himself studied in Rome, and he has perpetuated
the Pontifical method, if not the language of instuction. For
comparison's sake, I also took several years of ancient Greek, and it
was taught very differently from ancient Near Eastern languages. We
covered the entire grammar before we tackled texts. Student texts had
word divisions and punctuation -- only advanced students were
confronted with the irregularities of original texts. When when we
translated classics, we discussed content.
Has Assyriological really improved over the past decade? This is not
meant as a challenge -- I'm geniunely curious. I studied three
cuneiform languages from four different teachers in the 80s, and they
were all poorly taught. This criticism is not intended personally;
three of the four were conscientious teachers and likable individuals.
But they were all bad in the same way, apparently because they were
teaching the way they had been taught. If one asked a question, say
(hypothetically), "Why is there an "x" in this verb?", one of two
things would happen:
The teacher would recoil and say something like "it's the
personal-affix cross-referencing patient of the transitive verbal
root." Uh, right. If one pressed the point, the teacher would sigh
and complain outloud about how students these days just weren't like
yearyear; why, they actually expected the teacher to waste valuable
time teaching grammar.
The other possibility was far worse. This was when the student's
question turned out to be a Topic of Linguistic Interest. A half hour
later every board in the classroom would be covered with arrows and
charts with a blur of Eblaite, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Akkadian, and
you-name-it breezing by, with the teacher merrily concluding, "And that
is why there is an "x" in this verb!"
Drop-out rates were very high -- by the second week one was down to the
usual classmates: Student A, working on his eighth language, whose
linguistic virtuosity was matched only by his ignorance of Near Eastern
history, art, geography, and religion (..."hey, I'm a LINGUIST,
okay?"); Student B, an amiable chap from the local bible college; and
Student C, the only funded student in Assyriology.
There was a time when there was nothing I wanted to do more than study
ancient Near Eastern languages, and it took years of egregious teaching
to discourage my interest. Leaving me mildly disgruntled considering
that I am still paying back umpteen thousands of dollars in tuition,
Piotr.
Subject: Re: Indo-European Homeland -- India???
From: vidynath@math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath K. Rao)
Date: 24 Nov 1996 01:25:22 GMT
In article <577l1c$hff@halley.pi.net>,
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
>This misunderstanding is both Mallory's and yours. There is no hard
>evidence that the words are specifically Indo-Aryan, and they are
>obviously not Sanskrit. What we have is some Indo-Iranian words.
Most telling evidence for assuming that Mittani words were Indo-Aryan
is the word for one is `aika', with the k. Iranian languages
generally have n and not k. `aika' is a specifically Indo-Aryan
innovation (ai>e and au>o are changes that must have occured
latter. These changes are not reflected in Sanskrit sandhi either).
There are a few other arguments adduced, but they are weaker;
and one, that Indra is Indian and not Indo-Iranian, is unacceptable
in view of similarities between Indra and Thor.
--
Vidhyanath Rao It is the man, not the method, that solves
nathrao+@osu.edu the problem. - Henri Poincare
(614)-366-9341 [as paraphrased by E. T. Bell]
Subject: Re: Indo-European Homeland -- India???
From: vidynath@math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath K. Rao)
Date: 24 Nov 1996 01:33:35 GMT
In article <5777p1$oop@fridge-nf0.shore.net>,
Steve Whittet wrote:
>Here we find in residence at this period the Mitanni who have [...]
>a reputation as horse trainers [...]
This is a pet notion of IE-ists, ably criticized by Littauer (sp?)
and Crowell, ``Wheeled Transport and Ridden Animals in the Ancient
Near East'' [title from memory, may not be exact. If you need the
full bibliographic data, I will dig it up.]
Talking of this, does anybody in sci.archaeology know if the
Sintasha cemetries and others with evidence of spoked wheels
have been dated by physical means (ie C14 etc, rather than by
theories of what diffused from where and such)? As late as 1993,
Russian archaeologists and Indologists took it for granted that
Indo-Iranians invented chariots, in spite of the objections of
Littauer and Crowell.
--
Vidhyanath Rao It is the man, not the method, that solves
nathrao+@osu.edu the problem. - Henri Poincare
(614)-366-9341 [as paraphrased by E. T. Bell]
Subject: Re: Etruscans [was: Re: The Coming of the Greeks]
From: S.NEMETH@IX.NETCOM.COM (Stella Nemeth)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 23:16:05 GMT
mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) wrote:
>No. The Australian aborigines were not overwhelmed by the English
>vocabulary. The English did not simply wave the OED or Shakespeare's
>Complete Works at them (though the King James Version may have been used
>in that way). What did the trick were English firearms, technology,
>methods of food production, demography, etc.
Which, of course, is the point. The technology, and the shear mass of
new people (I think that's what you mean by "demography" above)
overwhelmed the Australian aborigines, ALONG WITH all of the words for
that new technology, those new firearms, those new methods of food
production, etc.
Finally, the entire new language superceded the old one (most of the
time at least) because you can't talk about the new technology, the
new methods of food production or even explain the new firearms, etc.
in the old language, even if you've added the new words to it. The
old language just doesn't have the structure needed to discuss these
new things.
There are also things that you can't discuss in English because of a
lack of vocabulary and also because of a lack of possible mind-set
while you are speaking English. Along with the idea that different
languages have different word counts, and that the differences are an
important clue to the sophistication of the language and the peoples
speaking it, is the idea that some languages have built into them the
ability to discuss subjects, which are important to the peoples who
developed the languages, that other languages haven't got.
I've seen this idea specifically mentioned in books I read years ago,
and pretty much taken for granted. I've had friends and relatives who
speak other languages tell me that they can't say "that" in English.
Sometimes it is just the lack of a particular piece of vocabulary that
already exists. An example of that is my husband's inability to
discuss contact lenses in Hungarian, because he only has the technical
vocabulary for contact lenses in English. Sometimes the language
itself seems to make thinking about certain subject impossible. I
haven't got an example of that to offer, but I've read that this is
also true.
Stella Nemeth
s.nemeth@ix.netcom.com
Subject: Re: Etruscans [was: Re: The Coming of the Greeks]
From: S.NEMETH@IX.NETCOM.COM (Stella Nemeth)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 23:16:07 GMT
mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) wrote:
>Everybody has the vocabulary they need. Nobody has a vocabulary of just
>1,000 words, and nobody has a vocabulary of 200,000 words. If your
>"1,000 words" are merely a metaphor for a language's core vocabulary,
>you'll find that it is remarkably stable over time, and hardly affected
>by borrowings. Only the phonetic shape changes, as everything does.
I'm not sure if everybody has the vocabulary they need. I find
myself searching for words I don't have all of the time. I think
someone stole them.
I know that Steve's "1,000 words" are not a metaphor for a language's
core vocabulary. What he is talking about is the point when the
audible communication of hominids first became what we can call
speech. This was possibly before there was modern man. Or possibly
this point arrived along with other characteristics that mark modern
man from earlier versions of hominids.
At some point the grunt and point became the word for tree and
everyone around the person who chose that particular sound for the
object which was a tree agreed that from now on that sound would stand
for the object. And there was one word.
At a later point, probably not much later, there was a "core
vocabulary" for a very ancient language. With that vocabulary one
could put together basic ideas, ask for help, tell the story of the
last hunt, explain where the tasty "yams" came from, tell your
significant other and your parents/children that you loved them, and
basically do all of the important things that people need language to
do. I'm pretty sure that core vocabulary was very small. Perhaps as
small as Steve's 1,000 words.
As the needs of the peoples speaking these languages changed, the
language changed. Words got added. Not just tree, but big tree, as
an example. When you bumped into a different group of people, and if
you managed not to kill one another in the process, you probably
discovered that they had a new kind of "tasty yam" and you probably
called it the same thing they called it. And additional words got
added.
We've seen this exact kind of thing happen over and over again during
the technological rush of the last 200 years. Just about everyone
calls the telephone some version of that word. And the same is true
for almost every other kind of technology. Get a new technology, add
a whole bunch of new words.
If you are English you take in "cinema", "film" and "movie" for the
same technology, because multiple words for the same thing are a
commonplace in English. Somehow I doubt if the French did the same
thing. As a result it is really easy to discuss moving pictures on
several different cultural levels and to let people know which level
is being discussed by the words used in the discussion. I don't know
French. How easy is it to do that in French? German? Spanish?
The books that I read years ago that said that English was a richer
and more complex language because of its much larger than "normal"
vocabulary.
Stella Nemeth
s.nemeth@ix.netcom.com
Subject: Re: The Coming of the Greeks (Diffusion of Sanskrit)
From: joe@sfbooks.com (Joe Bernstein)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 22:08:50 -0600
In article <56vjep$oad@cisu2.jsc.nasa.gov>, nas_ng@lms420.jsc.nasa.gov
(Ganesan) wrote:
>Joe Bernstein wrote:
Um, the text immediately following is not, in fact, mine. I'm not sure
from your cites here whether you thought it was or not. It's Miguel
Carrasquer-Vidal's; I'm not a linguist, but from the parts of his posts
which I can understand I find nothing embarrassing in being mistaken for
him. ;-)
>> >> Indo-Iranians from Central Asia came into Iran and India somewhere in
>> >> the 2nd millennium. Given that Indo-Iranian is closely connected to
>> >> languages in Europe (Greek especially), their ultimate origin must be
>> >> (Eastern) Europe.
>>
Snip considerable quoting, and end up with:
> A. Parpola, Deciphering the Indus script,
>Cambridge University Press, 1994, 374 p.
for which I thank you, since Moin Ansari has, so far, not shown up here
after all. (Or maybe it's just a propagation glitch, who knows - anyway,
thanks.)
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, free-lance writer and bookstore worker joe@sfbooks.com
speaking for myself and nobody else http://www.tezcat.com/~josephb/
Subject: Re: Giants Built The Pyramids
From: joe@sfbooks.com (Joe Bernstein)
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 22:14:58 -0600
Newsgroups massively trimmed (he didn't really mean to post to all of
alt.*, did he?).
In article <32975ad5.4912606@news.avel.net>, skuse@skuse.romgroup.co.uk
(Adamski) wrote:
>On Tue, 12 Nov 1996 16:33:46 -0800, Timothy Sutter
>wrote:
>
>>Yes folks big Giants built the so-called ancient pyramids.
>>They carried the massive stone blocks on their backs.
>>They had some little people around for guidance and support.
>>Some of the giants, who were killed in the great flood,
>>ended up as fossils on Easter Island.
>>Those Giant stone "statues" are actually
>>the fossilized remains of some Giants.
>>You can't prove me wrong because you don't know.
>
>This guy may be right....ever read "Fingerprints of the Gods"?
Oh, silly you. Of course he's right. What he failed to mention, however,
is that they weren't giant-sized humans, they were giant-sized sheep.
Obviously is holy writ, but to interpret such
words without danger to your immortal soul you need a true expert. I
strongly recommend the Reverend Colonel von Berlitz.
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, free-lance writer and bookstore worker joe@sfbooks.com
speaking for myself and nobody else http://www.tezcat.com/~josephb/
