Re: Contemporaneous protolanguages

Andreas Johansson scripsit:

> > I think it was in _Guns, Germs and Steel_ by Jared Diamond where i read
> > that it makes sense for the Semitic-speakers to have come from the
> > South, since the vast majority (and greatest variety) of Afro-Asiatic
> > languages are in Northern Africa.
>
> That's part of the reason I'm surprised at the notion they entered Sumeria from
> the south - if I were going to Sumeria from the Red Sea region without camels
> or trucks, my first idea would be trekking up thru Syria, and then following
> the Euphrates to enter Sumeria from the northwest, rather than cross the
> Arabian desert.
It's one thing to come from the South, and another thing to arrive over
the southern border.  The grandfather of a friend of mine escaped from
a Tsarist prison to Philadelphia -- by way of Vladivostok and San Francisco.

--
John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan      jcowan@reutershealth.com
Be yourself.  Especially do not feign a working knowledge of RDF where
no such knowledge exists.  Neither be cynical about RELAX NG; for in
the face of all aridity and disenchantment in the world of markup,
James Clark is as perennial as the grass.  --DeXiderata, Sean McGrath