Re: Contemporaneous protolanguages
| From: | Dirk Elzinga <dirk_elzinga@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, September 24, 2004, 19:02 |
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On Sep 24, 2004, at 12:20 PM, Mark J. Reed wrote:
> Suppose you could go back in time to when Proto-Indo-European
> was spoken in the Caucasus or wherever we think it was these days.
> Would a quick trip down to the Middle East find a culture of people
> speaking Proto-Afroasiatic at the same time? And what would the
> people in Eastern Asia be speaking at this point?
>
> Presumably there wouldn't be anyone at all in the Americas yet . . .
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.
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.
Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu
"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie
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