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Re: Contemporaneous protolanguages

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Friday, September 24, 2004, 20:21
On Fri, Sep 24, 2004 at 12:58:00PM -0600, Dirk Elzinga wrote:
> The relative dating I've heard places PIE at 5000-6000 years BP and > Proto-Afro-Asiatic at 8000-10,000 years BP, so no, they weren't > contemporaneous.
Ah, thank you. Indeed, 5000 years ago they were already speaking what is recognizably Ancient Egyptian in Egypt, so that would have to be post-Proto-Afro-Asiatic; I didn't realize PIE was that recent. Veddy interesting for my conhistorical purposes. Thanks.
> In the Americas, Uto-Aztecan is about as old as PIE. I don't know about > other families, though. The archeological evidence for first settlement > of the Americas is controversial, as I understand it, with some sites > in Brazil being dated to 25,000-30,000 years BP. But not being an > archeologist, I don't know what to think about that.
Sorry, sorry, I'm an idiot, I was confusing the timing of early civilizations with that of the proto languages. Of course there were already Americans 5000ben. -Marcos