Re: What features do P-I-E languages have in common?

Quoting John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

> Mark J. Reed scripsit:
>
> > Okay, my goal is to design a family of languages that all descend
> > from PIE, but have been completely isolated from all other
> > members of that family for the past few tens of millennia
>
> The time depth of PIE is only about 6000 years.
This is by no means universally accepted, though it is the currently
reigning orthodoxy.  In particular, those who advocate an Anatolian
Urheimat, such as Colin Renfrew, usually claim an age of somewhere
between 7,000 and 9,000 years B.P., when agriculture was spreading
out of Anatolia into Europe and elsewhere. One of the key pieces of
evidence usually cited in favor of the orthodox age is the fact that
a PIE root for "wheel" can be reconstructed, and no wheels have been
discovered earlier than about 6,000 years B.P.

(While I have no strong opinion on this, I have never gotten an
adequate response about the existence of wheels existing in
PreColumbian Meso-America which were used only with toys, and
not with modes of transportation.)

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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