Re: a Tocharian theory (was Re: Kentum/satem)

In a message dated 05/06/2002 07.47.58 AM, and_yo@HOTMAIL.COM writes:

>We-ell, my impression was that Mongolia was the, so too speak, Urheimat
>of the Turkic peoples. I might be wrong - Asian history is not something
you're
>supposed to know in this corner of the globe.
    ::gentle laughter:: Understandable. Thankfully there is the internet, eh?

    I am no expert on Asian history, I just have tonnage of resources and I
am not above bugging and pestering the experts halfway to madness with
questions ;)

    IIRC some unspecific area of Central Asian Steppes is the Turkic peoples'
_Ur-Heimat_. Some theories say Mongolia, others say somewhere further west
(as far west as the Caspian Sea), and still others say west of the Gobi
Desert-Altai Mountains area. I think I have even come across a gooey fruitbat
of a theory that the Gobi Desert itself was once upon a time an Turkic oasis.
    Suffice to say them Turkic peoples came from someplace in Central Asia...
exact spot unknown, so far.
    All this kinda reminds one of all the theories about the _Ur-Heimat_ of
the Indo-Europeans: "they are from HERE!" "No! they came from THERE..."

    I believe they all might be right to some degree or another... as I
believe human migrations can not be said to have been just one monolithic
movement in one direction or another. Human migrations have been mostly in
multiple pulsations and multiple wave-upon-wave and/or violent spasms.
    It is only in a certain kind of hindsight things like the great
migrations seem like one singular movement (i.e. even the historically recent
Westward Expansion in the US was multiple waves from multiple origination
points over many years, but it is quite often treated in many schooltextbooks
like it was one major event with the Gold Rush lumped in as a bonus
"highlight").

Hanuman Zhang  {HANoomaan JAHng} /'hanuma~n  dZahN/
~§~

Sometimes the difference between noise and music is all in your head

"I like the fact that listen is an anagram of silent." ~ Alfred Brendel

_NADA BRAHMA_= < from Sanskrit > "sound is god[head]"/"god[head] is sound"
    anavriti shabdat => "Liberation by sound."
 OM ... Om Tat Sat... Tat Tvam Asi... OM