The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel

[Nortaneous]

perhaps a root of the problem then is that a great deal of 'mainstream' historical linguistics is bad and the presentation is worse - for an unrelated example, Wurm's Papuan groupings are extremely preliminary & admitted as such, but generally presented as accepted facts on par with families that have been established through any real methodology whatsoever

once you get into the weeds of actual words, such as Italian acqua, it becomes very obvious that careful scholarship is necessary for accuracy; although dumping shit into a meat grinder is a necessary step in the process of developing knowledge, the end product is still ground shit, and extensive further processing is necessary to turn it into water

the process of turning shit into water of course necessitates a pipeline with multiple steps, from "dude weed lmao" to exceptionally careful types who probably don't even quite believe in Afroasiatic or Sino-Tibetan yet; but it kind of helps if the people at the earlier stages are at least somewhat sober, and not Ehrets or Starostins. (or worse, Ruhlens.) the Greenbergite objection that the process of proto-language reconstruction necessitates some prior idea of what to compare with what is obviously correct for combinatorial reasons, but that doesn't justify Greenbergism except as the stage that grinds shit; and in some cases, even well-established ones like Afroasiatic or even Uralic (where apparently about every root is irregular somewhere), you may not ever quite get water. certainly not even IE is entirely neogrammarian; e.g. lingua, kantwo etc.

(and some established facts about IE are likely wrong and soon to be overturned - "everyone knows" that PIE *d palatalized to TB ś, but the only example is śak 'ten', which is imo better treated as irregular. there are various other sound correspondences that remain to be worked out - iirc Orel claims both *sw > d and *sw > v)

[jal]

I learned that from Jouna Pyysalo.

Oh dear, that's a name I haven't heard for a while. I completely forgot about that charletan.


JAL

[Sol717]

Arguments have long been shown not to work well with our dear Octavià. Would mockery have a better effect, as detailed in this post of mine from August last year?

My post was more of targeted at lurkers/bystanders (esp. when they might be reading this 5/10 years down the line and aren't able to get any answers) not the guy himself.

certainly not even IE is entirely neogrammarian; e.g. lingua, kantwo etc.

I think stuff like lingua (easily explainable through influence of lingēre) can (should?) be classed separately from truly unexplainable irregularities such as kantwo.

Of course, the Neogrammarian model is a abstraction; actual sound changes aren't entirely regular (compare English beard < *bard to hard < *hard). While these irregular changes may be more common now than they were thousands of years ago, their existence back then can't be entirely ruled out.

[Creyeditor]

- for an unrelated example, Wurm's Papuan groupings are extremely preliminary & admitted as such, but generally presented as accepted facts on par with families that have been established through any real methodology whatsoever

I think there has been a great deal of progress since Wurm's work. Pawley and many others have worked out higher-order and lower-order groups with proper comparative methods.

[WeepingElf]

it is just that you apparently haven't learned properly how real etymology works and how real scholars discuss their ideas, and it seems as if you have deceived yourself by your improper methodology.

Nothing of the kind. Although I don't adhere to the "established" consensus regarding PIE, I know how comparative linguistics works, so if you've got any genuine criticism about any of my proposals, please feel free to express it.

I think we are dealing with a case of Dunning-Kruger effect here. Talskubilos has some knowledge of historical linguistics, but not enough to realize that it is insufficient and to tell the respectable scholarly work from the outputs of crackpots. As I said before, I don't think he is stupid; I especially don't think he is insincere and tries to sell us something he doesn't really believe in; but he thinks he is an expert while he actually isn't, and is more emotionally attached to the results of his work than a scholar ought to be, and therefore feels offended when others point out the flaws in his reasoning. And because he ran into a wall of criticism, he developed a kind of conspiracy theory about mainstream scholars who, according to him, gang up to hunt down infidels.

Yet, not everything he thinks he has found out is automatically wrong! He may have chanced on something that is real, even if his methodology is insufficient (in German, we say, Auch eine blinde Henne findet mal ein Korn 'even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain'). We don't know whether Basque has any relatives in the Caucasus, and it is indeed likely that it once had relatives which are now extinct (we already know one of them - Aquitanian - and have another good but uncertain candidate - Iberian), and there may be loanwords from such languages in European IE languages, And what regards his two 'head' words, there are indeed a few such doublets, one with voiceless stops and one with breathy-voiced stops, in PIE, and some scholars suspect an old consonant gradation here.

[Talskubilos]

I think we are dealing with a case of Dunning-Kruger effect here. Talskubilos has some knowledge of historical linguistics, but not enough to realize that it is insufficient and to tell the respectable scholarly work from the outputs of crackpots. As I said before, I don't think he is stupid; I especially don't think he is insincere and tries to sell us something he doesn't really believe in; but he thinks he is an expert while he actually isn't, and is more emotionally attached to the results of his work than a scholar ought to be, and therefore feels offended when others point out the flaws in his reasoning. And because he ran into a wall of criticism, he developed a kind of conspiracy theory about mainstream scholars who, according to him, gang up to hunt down infidels.

I'm sorry to see you misrepresented me once again!

Yet, not everything he thinks he has found out is automatically wrong! He may have chanced on something that is real, even if his methodology is insufficient (in German, we say, Auch eine blinde Henne findet mal ein Korn 'even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain'). We don't know whether Basque has any relatives in the Caucasus, and it is indeed likely that it once had relatives which are now extinct (we already know one of them - Aquitanian - and have another good but uncertain candidate - Iberian), and there may be loanwords from such languages in European IE languages,

Actually, it's rather the other way around: Aquitanian/Paleo-Basque and Iberian have loanwords from IE languages, and I've quoted a few in the other thread. But there's evidence of Caucasian loanwords in the language(s) of the Steppe people (aka Kurgans) as well as in individual IE branches, as I stated on FrathWiki.

And what regards his two 'head' words, there are indeed a few such doublets, one with voiceless stops and one with breathy-voiced stops, in PIE, and some scholars suspect an old consonant gradation here.

I'm afraid there're quite more than "a few" doublets (in some cases even triplets), and a little problem with Kortland's work is that he adheres to the Indo-Uralic hypothesis.

[Talskubilos]

De Vaan explains the geminate of accipiter as influence from accipio. Since It. acqua is regular, there is no need to posit a geminated byform of h₂eḱ- (which would be odd, since geminates in IE languages are post-IE).

But there're other instances of geminate in derivatives of *h₁eḱwo- 'horse', namely Greek híppos and Lusitanian Iccona, so I think it could be an irregular output of ḱw (Kretschmer's Law).

[bradrn]

But there's evidence of Caucasian loanwords in the language(s) of the Steppe people (aka Kurgans) as well as in individual IE branches, as I stated on FrathWiki.

I must admit that I was curious about your link here, so I had a look at it, and eventually found your statement of your theory on FrathWiki. Now, I appreciate my near-complete ignorance of PIE (and IE in general, hence my usual non-participation in this thread), but I found some parts of your theory to be somewhat… odd, to say the least, so I thought I might ask for clarification on some parts of it. In particular:

In addition to their native lexicon (i.e. the one inherited from its ancestor), all languages have loanwords from other languages, either resulting from language replacement (substrates) or contact (adstrates) processes. Thus they aren't actually monolythic but multi-layer entities (a term which I myself borrowed from the Bulgarian linguist Vladimir Georgiev, who first used it for describing Lycian, an Anatolian language).

Unfortunately, most comparative linguists have chosen a monolythic approach when reconstructing proto-languages (which to some extent are conlangs), so they implicit assume all the lexicon is inherited from a single source. In the case of the IE (macro)family, the "PIE" reconstructed by specialists doesn't represent a real language spoken by real people but rather a cross-section of the last stages of IE (which IMHO is the result of a complex series of replacement and contact processes). This can be exemplified by the huge gap between Anatolian and the rest of IE languages (cfr. Sturtervant's "Indo-Hittite"), which has lead to scholars such as the Spanish Francisco Rodríguez Adrados to propose a more refined model than the traditional one (coined by Neogrammarians in the 19th century), with several splits and intermediate stages.

I don’t see the problem with a huge gap between Anatolian and the rest of IE. Surely that could be sensibly accounted for by postulating a single PIE language (as is normally done), then dividing it into two subgroups (Anatolian and the rest of IE) which later diverged? This is hardly an uncommon situation in language families (e.g. look at Mande vs. the rest of Niger-Congo, though I admit that’s a somewhat controversial example).

By studying the ancient toponymy and hydronymy (including Krahe's Alteuropäische or Old European Hydronymy) of Europe and SW Asia, the Spanish IE-ist Francisco Villar (a former disciple of R. Adrados) has identified several Paleo-IE roots such as *akᵂā, *ap-/*ab-, *ub-/*up- 'water' representative of the languages spoken there by the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and the Neolithic farmers. IMHO these Paleo-IE layers (in plural) represent a very large amount of the IE lexicon, the rest coming from Kurganic, i.e. the language of the Steppe People (who in the Mallory-Gimbutas theory of the IE homeland are the speakers of PIE), which is mostly reflected in the Indo-Greek group (we shouldn't forget that Neogrammarians' reconstruction was based on Greek and Sanskrit), specially Indo-Iranian itself.

Apparently, Kurgan people were nomadic agro-pastoralists of the Pontic-Caspian Steppes acquainted with the domestic horse and wheeled vehicles like the oxen-driven wagon. In the Chalcolithic and the early Bronze Age, they underwent a rapid ("explosive" in Villar's words) expansion, imposing his language to other peoples in a series of elite dominance processes and contributing to the shaping of the later emerging historical IE languages, except Anatolian and possibly also Tocharian. As pointed out by Sergei Starostin, Kurganic has Vasco-Caucasian loanwords such as 'horse' and 'wheel'.

However, here and there traces of the languages spoken prior to Kurganic (i.e. pre-Kurganic) survived, especially in Germanic, whose stop system is different from the rest of IE (except Armenian) and comparable to the one of Kartvelian, upon which the so-called glotallic theory was modelled. …

So… I’ve tried my best, but I’m having real difficulties figuring out exactly what you’re trying to say here. Are you saying that Germanic and the other IE subgroups are unrelated to each other, and their vocabulary comes from different sources? Are you saying that they are all descended from Kurganic, but with substantial influences from other pre-Kurganic languages in the various branches? In other words: what, exactly, do you believe is the source of the various IE subgroups, if it wasn’t a single PIE language?

… Rather than considering it to be the result of a "shift" (Grimm's Law) as did Neogrammarians, I think it's a relic of the languages spoken in Neolithic Central Europe (LBK culture) …

What’s wrong with postulating a shift? What we see is a situation where consonants in Germanic languages and other IE languages are related by a set of extremely regular and consistent correspondences; a sound shift seems to explain that perfectly, whereas I’m not sure how your theory explains that at all. How exactly would influence from another language produce these regular correspondences, and why do you consider that theory to be more likely than a sound change such as Grimm’s Law?

… which in Renfrew's theory descend from the ones spoken by the Anatolian farmers and which linguistic evidence make them close to the Afrasian macrofamily and especially to Semitic. For example, the word *H₂arH₃-tr-o- 'plough' found in some IE languages is cognate to Semitic *ħVruθ- 'to till, to plough; arable land', where IE H₂ ~ Semitic ħ.

Other Neolithic Paleo-IE words can be found in Germanic-Semitic isoglosses investigated by the German IE-ist Theo Vennemann, such as English crab ~ Semitic *ʕa-kʼrab- 'scorpion'. Also sound correspondences proposed by Nostraticist Allan Bomhard show that palatal consonants merged with dentals in Neolithic Paleo-IE, of which Jörg Rhiemeier's Europic would be a representant (although of course our respective views differ very much).

To me, this seems to be the strangest part of your proposal. Are you seriously suggesting that Semitic speakers (or close relatives) migrated all the way from the Semitic urheimat to Central Europe, keeping their language all this time, but leaving nary a trace of their language in any point in between‽ I’m sorry, but you’ll have to be a lot more convincing if you want me to believe that.

[Talskubilos]

I don’t see the problem with a huge gap between Anatolian and the rest of IE. Surely that could be sensibly accounted for by postulating a single PIE language (as is normally done), then dividing it into two subgroups (Anatolian and the rest of IE) which later diverged? This is hardly an uncommon situation in language families (e.g. look at Mande vs. the rest of Niger-Congo, though I admit that’s a somewhat controversial example).

The thing is Anatolian has a diffrent verb morphology than other IE languages, but this is only a part of the problem.

So… I’ve tried my best, but I’m having real difficulties figuring out exactly what you’re trying to say here. Are you saying that Germanic and the other IE subgroups are unrelated to each other, and their vocabulary comes from different sources? Are you saying that they are all descended from Kurganic, but with substantial influences from other pre-Kurganic languages in the various branches? In other words: what, exactly, do you believe is the source of the various IE subgroups, if it wasn’t a single PIE language?

My idea is the IE family is the product of a (rather complex) series of expansion and replacement processes over several millenia, which would be reflected in various linguistic layers, the most recent of which would correspond to "Kurganic". In pure quantitative terms, there's no way the more than 2000 lexical items reconstructed for PIE could belong to a single protolanguage, not to speak of the various morphological paradigms.

To me, this seems to be the strangest part of your proposal. Are you seriously suggesting that Semitic speakers (or close relatives) migrated all the way from the Semitic urheimat to Central Europe, keeping their language all this time, but leaving nary a trace of their language in any point in between‽ I’m sorry, but you’ll have to be a lot more convincing if you want me to believe that.

It looks like Semitic was close to the languages spoken by Neolithic European farmers. This would explain loanwords/Wanderwörter such as '7' or 'plough' which originated in Semitic, but probably others went the other way around. For example, Semitic *χamʃ '5' would be related to the fossilized lexeme *ḱmt- found in some IE numerals and in turn to Germanic *xandu- 'hand'.

What’s wrong with postulating a shift? What we see is a situation where consonants in Germanic languages and other IE languages are related by a set of extremely regular and consistent correspondences; a sound shift seems to explain that perfectly, whereas I’m not sure how your theory explains that at all. How exactly would influence from another language produce these regular correspondences, and why do you consider that theory to be more likely than a sound change such as Grimm’s Law?

Certainly I should correct this part, because I'm sure "Grimm's Law" was for real, although it wasn't exclusive of Proto-Germanic, because it looks like Proto-Semitic had a similar sound shift! However, there's a problem with labiovelars in Germanic, which for the most part weren't reduced to labials, except for a few words as e.g. numeral '4', which could be a loanword from P-Celtic.

[bradrn]

I don’t see the problem with a huge gap between Anatolian and the rest of IE. Surely that could be sensibly accounted for by postulating a single PIE language (as is normally done), then dividing it into two subgroups (Anatolian and the rest of IE) which later diverged? This is hardly an uncommon situation in language families (e.g. look at Mande vs. the rest of Niger-Congo, though I admit that’s a somewhat controversial example).

The thing is Anatolian has a diffrent verb morphology than other IE languages, but this is only a part of the problem.

Could you explain the differences in verbal morphology to me? As I mentioned, I’m not too familiar with this area. Also, if this is only ‘part of the problem’, then what is the rest of the problem?

So… I’ve tried my best, but I’m having real difficulties figuring out exactly what you’re trying to say here. Are you saying that Germanic and the other IE subgroups are unrelated to each other, and their vocabulary comes from different sources? Are you saying that they are all descended from Kurganic, but with substantial influences from other pre-Kurganic languages in the various branches? In other words: what, exactly, do you believe is the source of the various IE subgroups, if it wasn’t a single PIE language?

My idea is the IE family is the product of a (rather complex) series of expansion and replacement processes over several millenia, which would be reflected in various linguistic layers, the most recent of which would correspond to "Kurganic".

Yes, you already said that. My issue is that merely referring to a ‘series of expansion and replacement processes’ is rather vague, and leaves much to be desired as an explanation. Specifically: what exactly is expanding? And what exactly is being replaced? And what influence exactly does the replaced language have on the one which replaced it?

In pure quantitative terms, there's no way the more than 2000 lexical items reconstructed for PIE could belong to a single protolanguage, not to speak of the various morphological paradigms.

Huh? You do realise that it is extremely common for languages to have more than 2000 words, right?

To me, this seems to be the strangest part of your proposal. Are you seriously suggesting that Semitic speakers (or close relatives) migrated all the way from the Semitic urheimat to Central Europe, keeping their language all this time, but leaving nary a trace of their language in any point in between‽ I’m sorry, but you’ll have to be a lot more convincing if you want me to believe that.

It looks like Semitic was close to the languages spoken by Neolithic European farmers. This would explain loanwords/Wanderwörter such as '7' or 'plough' which originated in Semitic, but probably others went the other way around. For example, Semitic *χamʃ '5' would be related to the fossilized lexeme *ḱmt- found in some IE numerals and in turn to Germanic *xandu- 'hand'.

Yes, I already realise that you gave evidence (albeit not very much) that ‘Semitic was close to the languages spoken by Neolithic European farmers’; that wasn’t my question. Let me repeat the question I actually meant to ask (sorry for being a bit vague about what I was asking):

Are you seriously suggesting that Semitic speakers (or close relatives) migrated all the way from the Semitic urheimat to Central Europe, keeping their language all this time, but leaving nary a trace of their language in any point in between‽

And, additionally: if this really is what you believe, what explanation do you have that we don’t find Semitic-influenced languages everywhere between Central Europe and Mesopotamia?

What’s wrong with postulating a shift? What we see is a situation where consonants in Germanic languages and other IE languages are related by a set of extremely regular and consistent correspondences; a sound shift seems to explain that perfectly, whereas I’m not sure how your theory explains that at all. How exactly would influence from another language produce these regular correspondences, and why do you consider that theory to be more likely than a sound change such as Grimm’s Law?

Certainly I should correct this part, because I'm sure "Grimm's Law" was for real, although it wasn't exclusive of Proto-Germanic, because it looks like Proto-Semitic had a similar sound shift! However, there's a problem with labiovelars in Germanic, which for the most part weren't reduced to labials, except for a few words as e.g. numeral '4', which could be a loanword from P-Celtic.

Thanks for clarifying! So I misunderstood you there.

[Talskubilos]

Yes, you already said that. My issue is that merely referring to a ‘series of expansion and replacement processes’ is rather vague, and leaves much to be desired as an explanation. Specifically: what exactly is expanding? And what exactly is being replaced? And what influence exactly does the replaced language have on the one which replaced it?

According to the standard model, speakers of PIE from the Pontic-Caspian steppes colonized most of Europe and parts of Asia, where (almost) completely wiped out the pre-existing languages, resulting in the various IE branches. My idea is there were other language expansions and replacements before the Steppe people (aka Kurgans) brought over their horses and wheeled vehicles, and these events were significant for the building of the IE family.

Huh? You do realise that it is extremely common for languages to have more than 2000 words, right?

That's not the question. The thing is most "PIE" words only show up in some IE languages but not in others, and furthermore there're several instances of what appears to be the same word but in different phonetic shapes.

Yes, I already realise that you gave evidence (albeit not very much) that ‘Semitic was close to the languages spoken by Neolithic European farmers’; that wasn’t my question. Let me repeat the question I actually meant to ask (sorry for being a bit vague about what I was asking):

Are you seriously suggesting that Semitic speakers (or close relatives) migrated all the way from the Semitic urheimat to Central Europe, keeping their language all this time, but leaving nary a trace of their language in any point in between‽

My point is the language(s) spoken by Neolithic farmers were related (or at least in close contact) to Semitic. According to Renfrew, Cavalli-Sforza et al., these farmers colonized Europe from Anatolia and brought over their own domesticated animals and plants.

And, additionally: if this really is what you believe, what explanation do you have that we don’t find Semitic-influenced languages everywhere between Central Europe and Mesopotamia?

Because they were replaced by IE ones some millenia ago. BTW, it's quite possible Proto-Germanic didn't originate in Central Europe.

[WeepingElf]

Yes, you already said that. My issue is that merely referring to a ‘series of expansion and replacement processes’ is rather vague, and leaves much to be desired as an explanation. Specifically: what exactly is expanding? And what exactly is being replaced? And what influence exactly does the replaced language have on the one which replaced it?

According to the standard model, speakers of PIE from the Pontic-Caspian steppes colonized most of Europe and parts of Asia, where (almost) completely wiped out the pre-existing languages, resulting in the various IE branches. My idea is there were other language expansions and replacements before the Steppe people (aka Kurgans) brought over their horses and wheeled vehicles, and these events were significant for the building of the IE family.

The standard model is very well confirmed by genetics (DNA studies - a hard science, even if its results are not easy to interpret, and it doesn't really say anything about languages). The analysis of old DNA from mortal remains has shown that the spread of IE was quite much like the European colonization of North America, and we know that American English doesn't owe very much to indigenous languages. Not nothing - quite a few terms in the fields of North American fauna, flora and indigenous culture made it into American English, and there is of course no shortage of geographical names from indigenous languages. Of course, there will be loanwords of this kind in IE language as well, but no Indo-Europeanist will deny that!

Genetics, linguistics and archaeology pretty much tell the same story (with some minor disagreements - which are to be expected because genes, languages and material culture don't always go together), so your doubts amount to doubts against all three. If three different, independent sciences say that there was a takeover of large parts of Europe by an expanding population at a specific time, common sense will tell that the story they tell is probably true.

Huh? You do realise that it is extremely common for languages to have more than 2000 words, right?

That's not the question. The thing is most "PIE" words only show up in some IE languages but not in others, and furthermore there're several instances of what appears to be the same word but in different phonetic shapes.

It is certainly true that some Indo-Europeanists over-reconstruct, and one finds etymologies in academic Indo-Europeanist work that are probably spurious; Pokorny was an egregious example of that. But does that delegitimize the whole endeavour? There are plenty of reconstructed PIE words which have reflexes in most branches, and most of the morphology is shared by all branches.

Yes, I already realise that you gave evidence (albeit not very much) that ‘Semitic was close to the languages spoken by Neolithic European farmers’; that wasn’t my question. Let me repeat the question I actually meant to ask (sorry for being a bit vague about what I was asking):

Are you seriously suggesting that Semitic speakers (or close relatives) migrated all the way from the Semitic urheimat to Central Europe, keeping their language all this time, but leaving nary a trace of their language in any point in between‽

My point is the language(s) spoken by Neolithic farmers were related (or at least in close contact) to Semitic. According to Renfrew, Cavalli-Sforza et al., these farmers colonized Europe from Anatolia and brought over their own domesticated animals and plants.

There may indeed have been Neolithic Wanderwörter which spread from language to language in the Near East as people adopted agriculture; it makes no sense denying this possibility. There are indeed candidates for such words in IE and Semitic that are seriously discussed by respectable scholars. This does not need Semitic speakers in Neolithic Europe. These Wanderwörter, whichever language their origin, would probably have been present in the languages of those Anatolian Neolithic farmers who colonized Europe, founding Starčevo, LBK and Cardial, as well. Their languages probably weren't related to Semitic (IMHO the origin of the Afrasian family, to which Semitic belongs, lies in NE Africa), but they nevertheless may have used the same agricultural, stockbreeding and other Neolithic cultural terms, just like modern European languages of whichever affiliation use the same terms for modern science, technology and culture.

And, additionally: if this really is what you believe, what explanation do you have that we don’t find Semitic-influenced languages everywhere between Central Europe and Mesopotamia?

Because they were replaced by IE ones some millenia ago. BTW, it's quite possible Proto-Germanic didn't originate in Central Europe.

Where, do you think, did Proto-Germanic come from then?

[bradrn]

Yes, you already said that. My issue is that merely referring to a ‘series of expansion and replacement processes’ is rather vague, and leaves much to be desired as an explanation. Specifically: what exactly is expanding? And what exactly is being replaced? And what influence exactly does the replaced language have on the one which replaced it?

According to the standard model, speakers of PIE from the Pontic-Caspian steppes colonized most of Europe and parts of Asia, where (almost) completely wiped out the pre-existing languages, resulting in the various IE branches. My idea is there were other language expansions and replacements before the Steppe people (aka Kurgans) brought over their horses and wheeled vehicles, and these events were significant for the building of the IE family.

Right, it’s starting to make more sense now. So what effect exactly did those ‘other language expansions and replacements’ have on the IE family? And what would be an example of one of those other replacements?

Yes, I already realise that you gave evidence (albeit not very much) that ‘Semitic was close to the languages spoken by Neolithic European farmers’; that wasn’t my question. Let me repeat the question I actually meant to ask (sorry for being a bit vague about what I was asking):

Are you seriously suggesting that Semitic speakers (or close relatives) migrated all the way from the Semitic urheimat to Central Europe, keeping their language all this time, but leaving nary a trace of their language in any point in between‽

My point is the language(s) spoken by Neolithic farmers were related (or at least in close contact) to Semitic. According to Renfrew, Cavalli-Sforza et al., these farmers colonized Europe from Anatolia and brought over their own domesticated animals and plants.

Ah, OK, that sounds more reasonable than what I was thinking.

And, additionally: if this really is what you believe, what explanation do you have that we don’t find Semitic-influenced languages everywhere between Central Europe and Mesopotamia?

Because they were replaced by IE ones some millenia ago. BTW, it's quite possible Proto-Germanic didn't originate in Central Europe.

And here we see that I am perfectly capable of missing an explanation which is totally obvious. Thanks for clarifying!

(Though… if your model is correct, then why didn’t those original Afro-Asiatic languages have a huge impact on the languages which expanded and replaced them?)

[Talskubilos]

The standard model is very well confirmed by genetics (DNA studies - a hard science, even if its results are not easy to interpret, and it doesn't really say anything about languages). The analysis of old DNA from mortal remains has shown that the spread of IE was quite much like the European colonization of North America, and we know that American English doesn't owe very much to indigenous languages. Not nothing - quite a few terms in the fields of North American fauna, flora and indigenous culture made it into American English, and there is of course no shortage of geographical names from indigenous languages. Of course, there will be loanwords of this kind in IE language as well, but no Indo-Europeanist will deny that!

But IMHO a large part of the +2000 lexical items reconstructed for PIE are actually loanwords.

It is certainly true that some Indo-Europeanists over-reconstruct, and one finds etymologies in academic Indo-Europeanist work that are probably spurious; Pokorny was an egregious example of that. But does that delegitimize the whole endeavour? There are plenty of reconstructed PIE words which have reflexes in most branches, and most of the morphology is shared by all branches.

The thing is the monophyletic/genealogical tree model is an oversimplification, because it doesn't properly account for lateral (substrate/adstrate) relationships.

There may indeed have been Neolithic Wanderwörter which spread from language to language in the Near East as people adopted agriculture; it makes no sense denying this possibility. There are indeed candidates for such words in IE and Semitic that are seriously discussed by respectable scholars.

Really? I don't think many IE-ists have taken up the matter since Möller.

This does not need Semitic speakers in Neolithic Europe. These Wanderwörter, whichever language their origin, would probably have been present in the languages of those Anatolian Neolithic farmers who colonized Europe, founding Starčevo, LBK and Cardial, as well. Their languages probably weren't related to Semitic (IMHO the origin of the Afrasian family, to which Semitic belongs, lies in NE Africa), but they nevertheless may have used the same agricultural, stockbreeding and other Neolithic cultural terms, just like modern European languages of whichever affiliation use the same terms for modern science, technology and culture.

Surely some of these items were Wanderwörter, but others such as the one I quoted before must have been direct loanwords.

[jal]

But IMHO a large part of the +2000 lexical items reconstructed for PIE are actually loanwords.

Are you suggesting that these words were borrowed into the various later language independently of each other? Or were they already borrowed in PIE? In the latter case that's not interesting at all I'd say, as they were still part of PIE proper. Also, where are you basing your humble opinion on? Any evidence that can withstand scientific scrutiny?


JAL

[bradrn]

The standard model is very well confirmed by genetics (DNA studies - a hard science, even if its results are not easy to interpret, and it doesn't really say anything about languages). The analysis of old DNA from mortal remains has shown that the spread of IE was quite much like the European colonization of North America, and we know that American English doesn't owe very much to indigenous languages. Not nothing - quite a few terms in the fields of North American fauna, flora and indigenous culture made it into American English, and there is of course no shortage of geographical names from indigenous languages. Of course, there will be loanwords of this kind in IE language as well, but no Indo-Europeanist will deny that!

But IMHO a large part of the +2000 lexical items reconstructed for PIE are actually loanwords.

Let me ask another one of my questions: does this matter? In English, we have plenty of words like ‘formation’ and ‘question’ and ‘verb’ and ‘matter’: yes, they’re loanwords, but no-one sane would say that they’re not English. In the same way, even if you postulate that most ‘PIE’ words were loaned into it, that doesn’t mean they stop being words of PIE! (EDIT: Oops, just noticed jal had exactly the same critique!)

(On the other hand, if you’re saying that those words were loaned into descendants of PIE, and thus weren’t in PIE to begin with, then… well, that’s a quite different theory, and it would have been nice if you had said that clearly in the first place! Although the same argument still applies: just because they were loaned into Proto-Germanic or Proto-Indo-Iranian or whatever, that doesn’t mean that they’re no longer words from Proto-whatever! Although I must admit that I see this possibility as rather unlikely to begin with… sure, I can easily imagine this happening for one or two branches, but this sort of large-scale borrowing is rather uncommon, and correspondingly I see it as incredibly unlikely for that same process of replacement to have happened independently in every single PIE branch.)

[Talskubilos]

Let me ask another one of my questions: does this matter? In English, we have plenty of words like ‘formation’ and ‘question’ and ‘verb’ and ‘matter’: yes, they’re loanwords, but no-one sane would say that they’re not English. In the same way, even if you postulate that most ‘PIE’ words were loaned into it, that doesn’t mean they stop being words of PIE! (EDIT: Oops, just noticed jal had exactly the same critique!)

A very important thing we mustn't forget is PIE isn't a real language like English but a mere theoretical construct.

(On the other hand, if you’re saying that those words were loaned into descendants of PIE, and thus weren’t in PIE to begin with, then… well, that’s a quite different theory, and it would have been nice if you had said that clearly in the first place!

Perhaps I didn't express myself well, but I think the commonly accepted idea that all the IE languages are descendants of a hypothetical proto-language (PIE) isn't entirely correct.

Although the same argument still applies: just because they were loaned into Proto-Germanic or Proto-Indo-Iranian or whatever, that doesn’t mean that they’re no longer words from Proto-whatever!

This is why I think we'd need not just one, but several protolanguages for the IE family.

(Though… if your model is correct, then why didn’t those original Afro-Asiatic languages have a huge impact on the languages which expanded and replaced them?)

What would you consider to be a "huge impact"?

[Travis B.]

(On the other hand, if you’re saying that those words were loaned into descendants of PIE, and thus weren’t in PIE to begin with, then… well, that’s a quite different theory, and it would have been nice if you had said that clearly in the first place!

Perhaps I didn't express myself well, but I think the commonly accepted idea that all the IE languages are descendants of a hypothetical proto-language (PIE) isn't entirely correct.

Although the same argument still applies: just because they were loaned into Proto-Germanic or Proto-Indo-Iranian or whatever, that doesn’t mean that they’re no longer words from Proto-whatever!

This is why I think we'd need not just one, but several protolanguages for the IE family.

You do realize this is an extraordinary claim for which you need extraordinary evidence, right?

[Talskubilos]

You do realize this is an extraordinary claim for which you need extraordinary evidence, right?

Yes, of course.

[KathTheDragon]

So where's the extraordinary evidence?