Re: Interesting pre-Greek article

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 02:03:30 -0400, Jeffrey Jones <jsjonesmiami@...>
wrote:

>> I was using the term pre-Greek to mean simply "before Greek" some 30
>> years ago. When did the use of pre- to mean "first early form derived
>> from internal reconstruction" come into use?
>
> I was under the impression that it was an old term, since internal
> reconstruction has been around a while, but it could be a CyBaLiSt
> neologism AFAIK.
I have encountered it in Cybalist-like circles in the rather interesting
term "pre-proto-IE". Some people (of varying degrees of scholarhood) have
taken what is recontructable of proto-IE, and undertaken "internal
reconstruction" (of varying degrees of scholarliness) to attempt to
identify some stage of the language even earlier than that which can be
taken as existing at the point the dialect continuum started to break
down. The theories can make for interesting reading (I like the
reconstruction of the six-vowel aiuáíú series, myself), but I suspect
we'll never reach a state of knowledge where we can prove anything
definitively.

On a similar note, I wonder whether it would be possible to take what is
known of pre-Greek, and flesh it out into a full conlang? Largely of
course it would be speculation, but I think the challenge might be
interesting, and might provide material for other AU artlang attempts. Not
necessarily "this is likely", because I think there's a definite point at
which the known fades into the unknown, but I think "this is plausible"
might be the grounds for interesting work.





Paul