Re: Pama-Nyungan, was Re: Indo-European family tree

now, I'm far far from an expert, but I did just see _SERENITY_ today.

(shades of that Holiday Inn commercial...and true, too)

:)


>Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 18:18:14 EDT
>
>In a message dated 9/30/2005 8:15:26 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>andjo@FREE.FR
>writes:
>
> >When IE languages have replaced non-IE ones in historical times, eg
>Etruscan
>and
> >many languages of the Americas, the process has been facilitated by
>imperial
> >control by IE-speakers. Since there presumably weren't any empires around
>in
> >pre-Roman West and Central Europe,
  there were cultural empires, yes?  La Tene, for example.

>>some other mechanism is presumably
>required
> >to explain its initial spread.
>
>That reminds me of a question about another language family:  RMW Dixon
>says
>that one reason to doubt that Pama-Nyungan (in Australia) is really a
>language
>family is that it is hard to see how one language (proto-Pama-Nyungan)
>could
>have replaced all the previously existing languages across a wide area
>(most
>of Australia) in the absence of empires, agriculture, or anything else that
>would have given the proto-Pama-Nyungans a decisive advantage over the
>preexisting languages and cultures.
  what about weapons?  surely there was difference between *some*
groups...yes?

>I'd be interested in the opinions of list members about that argument.
  My opinion about that is - "Can't there be an empire (or a near approach
to being empire) without having iron or bronze tools?"

Certainly, through human history, some groups have come barrelling from
distant hills, to take over (or at least exert influence) over other hills
far from their ancestral home.

yes?


thoughts?

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