Re: another language reconstruction question

#
# Florian Rivoal scripsit:
#
# > If the langage did not have the support of such a big civilisation how
# > could it manage to replace allmost everything around?
#
# Through a series of individual competitions, whereby the superior
# technology of the PIE (or IE) speakers permitted them to attain
# cultural dominance.  It obviously didn't happen everywhere, as the
# cases of Basque and Etruscan show; but it did happen in a very large
# number of places.
#

I thought it might be good to add that socio-political dominance does not
necessarily equal linguistic dominance.

English survived the Norman conquest, and Norman French survived
the Norse conquest. (With obvious traces, of course)

I would fathom it probable that (P)IE speakers hadn't always been the
dominant group in certain areas, but the language(s) won out in spite of
that.

-tim
http://www.zece.com/conlang/