Re: languages of pre-I.E. Europe and onwards

Hallo!

On Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:19:39 -0500, John Vertical wrote:

> On Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:12:35 +0100, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> >> Population genetics is probably valid for some very general conclusions
> >> about the interrelations of the world's languages.
> >
> >Not really.
>
> >It is usually reasonable to assume that the nearest relatives of
> >language X are found in its neighbourhood. For instance, it is
> >more likely that the nearest relative of Indo-European is Uralic,
> >rather than, e.g., Wakashan. But this assumption can easily fail,
> >because some groups of people apparently engaged in large-scale
> >migrations, and languages evidently spread even faster.
>
> Which is why I said "very general". Ruling out Wakashan-IE is not something
> I would do offhand (remember that Tsimshian-IE proposal BTW?)
Sure.  I do remember that Tsimshian-IE proposal; I wasn't convinced.
Yet, such hypotheses cannot be ruled out merely because the two units
are too far away from each other.

>       I'm regardless
> basically certain there's nothing of the Wakashan-Khoisan or Pama-Nyungan-IE
> sort. When the area we're talking of is pre-inhabited, what we have evidence
> for is expansions across a single continent, or somewhat more rarely, a
> single ocean. But the time-depth at our disposal just isn't sufficient for
> an expansion that goes across two-three of each without leaving anything
> in-between, and not only because an expansion leaves a large amount of
> child-groups: a child-group expanding again further in the "right" direction
> is about as unlikely as any single language group expanding in the first
> place (ie. not too good).
If two language families spoken far, far away from each other turn
out to be related to each other, one would expect some further
languages sharing the relationship somewhere in between (e.g., with
my IE-Wakashan example, in Siberia), but it is of course not
inconceivable that those "missing links" have all disappeared, and
only the two most extreme members of a once widely spread out phylum
have survived.

> >>       But in the
> >> meantime, the current proposals are the best clue we have to go on.
> >
> >I would not say that Nostratic or Dene-Caucasian are impossible, but
> >the evidence is simply insufficient.  I indeed feel that IE, Uralic
> >and probably a few others are related - but I cannot prove it.
>
> The hypotheses need more work, that's for sure.  Just saying that there are
> too many estabilish'd families for random "no preconceptions" comparisions
> to be any more fruitful.
Yes.  There are certainly many deep language relationships not yet
established (or establishable) by means of the comparative method,
that's sure.  And some of the proposed distant relationship hypotheses
may indeed be true - but for now, most of them are too weaky founded
to consider the relationships established.

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