Re: Island

Jonathan Chang scripsit:

> hmmm, while we are at it, perhaps people on steppes were not as ignorant of
> these ideas & words as one would suppose... if they travelled & traded over
> long distances, they are bound to come into contact with lotsa new &
> interesting experiences & new languages to borrow from, right???
Sure, but those words probably woudn't integrate themselves into the
language core: different dialects (eventually to become families) would
get different ones.  We can conclude, e.g., from the lack of a common
word for "iron" that the pre-breakup Indo-Europeans did not know iron,
and this is confirmed by outside evidence.

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
       I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin