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

Hallo!

On Tue, 27 Jan 2009 08:13:22 +0000, R A Brown wrote:

> Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> > Hallo!
> >
> > On Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:30:40 +0000, R A Brown wrote:
> [snip]
> >> I won't comment further on Jörg's reply, which I am in agreement with,
> >> except this:
> >>
> >>>>>       and ancient population movements can be
> >>>>> reconstructed by molecular biology.
> >>> Be careful.  The idea of grafting language family tree on genetic
> >>> trees, as done by Cavalli-Sforza and his followers, is generally
> >>> met with suspicion, as genetic relationship does not necessarily
> >>> imply linguistic relationship, and vice versa.
> >> Yes indeed - *be careful*. Genetic relationship does *not* necessarily
> >> imply linguistic relationship, and vice versa.
> >
> > Indeed.  Where is your disagreement with me?
>
> Sorry - badly worded on my part    :(
>
> The 'except' was not meant to go with "which I am in agreement with"
> (perhaps parentheses around that clause would have been better than mere
> commas), but with "I won't comment" (i.e. I won't make any other comment
> except this one).
>
> There is no disagreement whatever. I wanted to _emphasize_ the point you
> made as I think it is very important. IMO too much mischief has been
> caused by the erroneous notion that genetic relationship necessarily
> implies linguistic relationship & conversely that linguistic
> relationship necessarily implies genetic relationship. Neither
> implications are necessarily valid.
>
> Sorry about the misunderstanding.
I see.

Indeed, too much mischief has been caused by that notion.
Cavalli-Sforza's family trees and old maps of the distribution
of human races according to which Finns and Hungarians belong
to the "Mongolic race" are rather harmless examples - but other
examples are far from harmless.

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