WeepingElf's Europic thread

[WeepingElf]

2. If PIE I and the Old European hydronymy were Mesolithic, when and where was PIE I spoken?

The Spanish Indo-Europeanist Francisco Villar, in his last book Vascos, celtas e indo-europeos. Lenguas y genes (coauthored with Blanca M. Prosper), made an statistical study of a sample of ancient toponymy roots (not just hydronyms) and found out its center of distribution was located in SW Europe,

Statistics are a great way to shoot yourself in the foot. Which way does he prove that the Old European names are oldest in the Iberian Peninsula?

possibly associated with the repopulation of Europe from that area after the Younger Dryas (roughly 9,500 BC) proposed by the Belgian archaeologist Marcel Otter.

Repopulation? Nowadays, hardly any archaeologist believes that Central Europe was uninhabited at the end of the last ice age; human artifacts from that time have been found as far north as Ahrensburg, a suburb of Hamburg. Sure, it is likely that after the Younger Dryas, people moved north into a sparsely populated Central Europe, but such migrations ought to have increased the diversity of languages in that area.

The actual distribution of OEH as well as its relative chronology are incompatible with WeepingElf's hypothesis of it being spoken by LBk farmers.

How do you date those names? What makes you so sure that they are Mesolithic? And if the OEH originated in Spain, how then is it related to Indo-European, which originated from the other end of Europe? Or did the ancestors of one of the two groups migrate across the whole continent? Your constructions become ever more bizarre the more problems people here point out.

[Octaviano]

I'll recommend you read Robert Mailhammer's The prehistory of European languages.

To me, it's interesting because it quotes Villar on the question of the Mesolithic repopulation of Northern anc Central Europe from the SW:

Mesolithic Europe: repopulation from the south (9000-7000 BC)

The trend towards complete occupation of the European continent had already started in the last stages of the last ice age, and continued in the Mesolithic period, which began in the 9th millenium BC, when the temperature increased rapidly. From the SW and, to a lesser degree from the SE, people moved northward as northern Europe became more hospitable. Both movements cannot only be traced archaeologically but also genetically (see Villar and Prosper 2005: Vascos, celtas e indoeuropeos. Genes y lenguas, 397-419 for an overview of the genetic research). Hunter-and-gatherer groups entered England in the 9th and Ireland in the 8th millenium BC, leaving some of the most important cultural traces of the European Mesolithic era. In central Europe, the relics of the Maglemosian Culture in Denmark bear witness to the northward expansion, as do the remnants of the Kunda Culture (Estonia) in eastern Europe.

In the wake of these migrations the eastern Paleolithic group probably came into contact with the western group, so that, for example, the human pioneers in the area east of the Baltic Sea originally belonged to both groups and were therefore not likely to be a linguistically homogeneous group. With regard to SE Europe, however, archaeologists generally do not speak of a Mesolithic period: firstly, because the area was only very sparsely populated, and secondly because the first farmers, and with them the Neolithic period, became established in Greece already around 7000 BC. During the Mesolithic priod people lived as nomadic hunter-and-gatherer groups, but in contrast to their Paleolithic ancestors they established comparatively larger settlements for up to 100 people, consisting of wooden huts in which they lived over several months.

Similar to the preceding period, though the archaeological finds clearly permit the inference that quite a number of hunter-gatherer groups existed in Mesolithic Europe, virtually nothing can be said about the languages that were spoken then. It seems clear, though, that the people living in Europe at this time were exclusively native in the sense that they were descendents of the Paleolithic propulation of Europe. However, all inferences and speculations about their languages can only be based on what can be reconstructed form the attested situation several millenia later.

[WeepingElf]

I'll recommend you read Robert Mailhammer's The prehistory of European languages.

To me, it's interesting because it quotes Villar on the question of the Mesolithic repopulation of Northern anc Central Europe from the SW.

Thank you! This looks like an interesting read.

[Octaviano]

Unfortunately, he's on the crackpot side as he follows Vennemann in thinking Basque is a descendant of OEH.

[Morrígan]

Unfortunately, he's on the crackpot side as he follows Vennemann in thinking Basque is a descendant of OEH.

That's probably the least crazy thing he has claimed.

[finlay]

Unfortunately, he's on the crackpot side as he follows Vennemann in thinking Basque is a descendant of OEH.

thought that word was offensive

[Colzie]

Unfortunately, he's on the crackpot side as he follows Vennemann in thinking Basque is a descendant of OEH.

thought that word was offensive

Only when it's part of an ad octavianum argument.

[gsandi]

Unfortunately, he's on the crackpot side as he follows Vennemann in thinking Basque is a descendant of OEH.

It's a review paper, and doesn't claim anything.

I think it's a very good summary of current thinking, and it gives the pros and cons of the ideas it covers. Most importantly, it insists on how little we actually know, and is very careful to distinguish between known (or highly likely) facts and hypotheses advanced by verious scholars.

So, it's most definitely not the writing of a crackpot.

Thank you for letting us know about it.

[Octaviano]

I didn't pay attention to it before, but Mailhammer's document is hosted on the same web site (University of Munich) than Theo Vennemann's web page. This reinforces my impression that it looks like a "paid review" of Vennemann's theories.

Krahe's "Alteuropäische" (aka OEH) is a subset of the Paleo-European toponymy which represents a substrate layer corresponding to the Mesolithic repopulation of Europe from the SW. Although this is recognized by Vennemann, he's mistaken in thinking this Paleo-European language (which he calls "Vasconic") is the ancestor of Basque:

While the structure of the Old European hydronyms does not support an Indo-European origin, the structural and substantive similarities between the language of the Old European hydronymy and Basque are striking. Basque is therefore considered a descendant of the Old European language family, which is named Vasconic. It is proposed that after the last ice-age, peoples from southern Europe who spoke Vasconic languages populated western, northern, and large parts of central Europe before the advent of the Indo-Europeans, naming important features of their environment in a uniform way with appellative expressions that were later taken over by successive non-Vasconic intruding populations. Many of these names have persisted until today, forming what is here called the Old European toponymy which includes Krahe's Old European hydronymy.

[TzirTzi]

I'll recommend you read Robert Mailhammer's The prehistory of European languages.

To me, it's interesting because it quotes Villar on the question of the Mesolithic repopulation of Northern anc Central Europe from the SW.

Thanks also - I (and perhaps others like myself, reading these threads but without the experience to comment much) really appreciate it when you guys post links to the papers that you're talking about!

The one thing that struck me as a bit doubtful in that article was the assertion of a relation between the OEH and Vasconic languages with a time-depth of 10 millenia. Is it really possible to posit links at such a time-depth from such sparse evidence?

[Octaviano]

The thing is most IE-ists see OEH as a very archaic form of IE (which Adrados calls IE I), Vennemann being one of the few dissidents on that (the other one I know of is Beekes).

[TomHChappell]

Does anybody besides me have trouble keeping straight which linguist someone is talking about when they only use the last name to refer to them?

I'm unaware of George Starostin doing any major work on Proto-North Caucasian. I figured given the subject matter it would be obvious I was talking about Sergei. Sorry for the confusion.

It wasn't just your post, nor even just this thread. I'd never heard of either Starostin as a linguist before Octaviano began posting on ZBB. I'd heard of a linguist Starotsin, but mostly in terms of "Lexicase" and Pacific languages. [EDIT]: I was wrong; that was Stanley Starosta http://www2.hawaii.edu/~stanley/ http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/faculty/stanley/ http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/faculty/stanley/pawley.html [/EDIT]

I figured given the subject matter it would be obvious I was talking about Sergei.

(One of those things that's "Clear only if known".)

Thanks for clearing it up for me.

[WeepingElf]

Unfortunately, he's on the crackpot side as he follows Vennemann in thinking Basque is a descendant of OEH.

If you consider it crackpotry, why do you recommend reading it?

[Octaviano]

Unfortunately, he's on the crackpot side as he follows Vennemann in thinking Basque is a descendant of OEH.

If you consider it crackpotry, why do you recommend reading it?

Because he supports (after Villar) the idea that OEH is from the Mesolithic. The crackpot part is the link between OEH and Basque proposed by Vennemann.

The idea is Adrados' PIE I originated in SW Europe and then spread to Central and Northern Europe in the Mesolithic as attested by the OEH. However, in the Baltic region it interacted with the language of the SE group, which is more or less where you locate your "Proto-Europic".

[WeepingElf]

Unfortunately, he's on the crackpot side as he follows Vennemann in thinking Basque is a descendant of OEH.

If you consider it crackpotry, why do you recommend reading it?

Because he supports (after Villar) the idea that OEH is from the Mesolithic. The crackpot part is the link between OEH and Basque proposed by Vennemann.

I see. What to expect from a member of Vennemann's staff who probably also was a student of Vennemann At least you don't judge scholarly writings on a black-or-white basis. That's a nice trait of you - many amateur scholars are incapable of differentiating that way.

The idea is Adrados' PIE I originated in SW Europe and then spread to Central and Northern Europe in the Mesolithic as attested by the OEH.

PIE I in SW Europe - weird. How then do you explain the morphological similarities between IE and Uralic (which are obvious from reading the reconstructed grammars)? And where do you place PIE proper (Adrados's PIE II)? I am sorry, but all that doesn't make the slightest sense to me. You posit more transcontinental migrations (Basque from Anatolia to the Southwest, and PIE II from the Southwest to the Southeast) than probably happened.

However, in the Baltic region it interacted with the language of the SE group, which is more or less where you locate your "Proto-Europic".

Proto-Europic in the Baltic??? I never proposed that (though the northeasternmost part of the OEH stretches to Lithuania and Latvia). May it be that you are confusing "Baltic" and "Balkan" here? Proto-Europic was, according to my hypothesis, where now is the Bay of Odessa, quite far from the Baltic.

[Octaviano]

The idea is Adrados' PIE I originated in SW Europe and then spread to Central and Northern Europe in the Mesolithic as attested by the OEH.

PIE I in SW Europe - weird.

Not really. It's the only way to explain the actual distribution of OEH.

How then do you explain the morphological similarities between IE and Uralic (which are obvious from reading the reconstructed grammars)?

They're not so obvious to me. Now I'm investigating the lexical isoglosses between IE and Altaic (including substrate loanwords in Western Europe languages).

And where do you place PIE proper (Adrados's PIE II)?

In the Low Danube-Balkan area, where it became in contact with the Vasco-Caucasian of the Neolihtic farmers.

I am sorry, but all that doesn't make the slightest sense to me. You posit more transcontinental migrations (Basque from Anatolia to the Southwest, and PIE II from the Southwest to the Southeast) than probably happened.

Well, that's your opinion. Linguistic data points in another direction.

However, in the Baltic region it interacted with the language of the SE group, which is more or less where you locate your "Proto-Europic".

Proto-Europic in the Baltic??? I never proposed that (though the northeasternmost part of the OEH stretches to Lithuania and Latvia). May it be that you are confusing "Baltic" and "Balkan" here?

You didn't understand me. What I said is people coming from the SW met the one coming from the SE in the Baltic, and it was in the SE where
you locate your "Proto-Europic", not in the Baltic.

Proto-Europic was, according to my hypothesis, where now is the Bay of Odessa, quite far from the Baltic.

Possibly the language of these Mesolithic people had something to do with the Pre-Saami substrate. After Ante Aikio's research, my "crackpot" colleague Arnaud Fournet made an essay about this. He has found two substrate layers in Saami: one Baltic-like (IE "satem") and another one which (with very little success) he tries to relate to Basque.

This is the second attempt (the first was Vennemann's) to relate Basque to a Mesolithic language.

[WeepingElf]

The idea is Adrados' PIE I originated in SW Europe and then spread to Central and Northern Europe in the Mesolithic as attested by the OEH.

PIE I in SW Europe - weird.

Not really. It's the only way to explain the actual distribution of OEH.

If one insists in it originating in the southwest. How good is the evidence for that? How do you date geographical names from an unkown language?

How then do you explain the morphological similarities between IE and Uralic (which are obvious from reading the reconstructed grammars)?

They're not so obvious to me. Now I'm investigating the lexical isoglosses between IE and Altaic (including substrate loanwords in Western Europe languages).

You should compare languages rather than just dictionaries. The similarities between IE and Uralic are just glaringly obvious, if one looks at pronouns, verbal personal endings, case markers etc. Sure, the relationship is not yet proven, but these parallels are not easily explained by chance. I haven't found this kind of resemblance between any two of the language families you consider "Vasco-Caucasian".

And where do you place PIE proper (Adrados's PIE II)?

In the Low Danube-Balkan area, where it became in contact with the Vasco-Caucasian of the Neolihtic farmers.

OK.

I am sorry, but all that doesn't make the slightest sense to me. You posit more transcontinental migrations (Basque from Anatolia to the Southwest, and PIE II from the Southwest to the Southeast) than probably happened.

Well, that's your opinion. Linguistic data points in another direction.

Or rather, your interpretation of linguistic data. My interpretation gets along with fewer large-scale migrations. That's of course not a proof that my interpretation is right, but remember Ockham's Razor.

However, in the Baltic region it interacted with the language of the SE group, which is more or less where you locate your "Proto-Europic".

Proto-Europic in the Baltic??? I never proposed that (though the northeasternmost part of the OEH stretches to Lithuania and Latvia). May it be that you are confusing "Baltic" and "Balkan" here?

You didn't understand me. What I said is people coming from the SW met the one coming from the SE in the Baltic, and it was in the SE where
you locate your "Proto-Europic", not in the Baltic.

Oh, I apologize for the misunderstanding.

Proto-Europic was, according to my hypothesis, where now is the Bay of Odessa, quite far from the Baltic.

Possibly the language of these Mesolithic people had something to do with the Pre-Saami substrate. After Ante Aikio's research, my "crackpot" colleague Arnaud Fournet made an essay about this. He has found two substrate layers in Saami: one Baltic-like (IE "satem") and another one which (with very little success) he tries to relate to Basque.

This is the second attempt (the first was Vennemann's) to relate Basque to a Mesolithic language.

I'll see. I haven't taken a look at Pre-Saami substratum yet, and therefore currently have no hypothesis concerning it. I don't expect any relationship to Europic, nor to Basque.

[Octaviano]

The idea is Adrados' PIE I originated in SW Europe and then spread to Central and Northern Europe in the Mesolithic as attested by the OEH. It's the only way to explain the actual distribution of OEH.

If one insists in it originating in the southwest. How good is the evidence for that?

It's on Villar's. Actually, I didn't realize the importance of his data until now.

How do you date geographical names from an unkown language?

This argument can be also applied to your hypothesis.

The similarities between IE and Uralic are just glaringly obvious, if one looks at pronouns, verbal personal endings, case markers etc. Sure, the relationship is not yet proven, but these parallels are not easily explained by chance.

If my hypothesis is correct, the language of the Mesolithic refugees from the SE (Balkans-Ukraine area) wasn't IE-I but possibly interacted with it, thus contributing to its evolution into IE-II. Remember that (unlike IE-II and IE-III) IE-I was agglutinative rather than flexional.

But I'm affraid there're still many gaps to fill regarding "Nostratic" links.

My interpretation gets along with fewer large-scale migrations. That's of course not a proof that my interpretation is right, but remember Ockham's Razor.

The problem is that archaeological and genetical data point to these "large-scale" migrations. This is Occam's razor too.

[Octaviano]

I'll see. I haven't taken a look at Pre-Saami substratum yet, and therefore currently have no hypothesis concerning it. I don't expect any relationship to Europic, nor to Basque.

In a quick glance, I've identified some Altaic-like words with *Cja-/*Cuo-:

duollu 'frost on the ground' ~ Proto-Altaic *tsjòlú (~ t-) 'ice, hail'

muov(h)la 'deep snow' ~ Proto-Altaic *mjú:l'i 'ice, hail'

*njárga 'cap' ~ Proto-Altaic *n'jàrke 'to pinch (hair)'

suovka 'dense thicket' ~ (?) Proto-Altaic *sjó:p`ì 'thorn, thorny bush'

suovvi 'wet and sticky snow' (also sievlla 'soft snow') ~ Proto-Altaic *sjòmì (~ z-) 'wet snow, hoar frost'

Other Pre-Saami words attributed to IE by Arnaud can also be analyzed as Altaic. For example:

áDga 'grass bank' ~ Proto-Altaic *aŋt`à 'a k. of fragant plant'

orda 'treeline' ~ Proto-Altaic *ót`ó(rV) 'bushes, low trees' (with metathesis)

dievva 'hill' ~ Proto-Altaic *tújpè (~ d-) 'hill, top'

[WeepingElf]

The idea is Adrados' PIE I originated in SW Europe and then spread to Central and Northern Europe in the Mesolithic as attested by the OEH. It's the only way to explain the actual distribution of OEH.

If one insists in it originating in the southwest. How good is the evidence for that?

It's on Villar's. Actually, I didn't realize the importance of his data until now.

How do you date geographical names from an unkown language?

This argument can be also applied to your hypothesis.

Sure. Indeed, I have no positive evidence for the names being Neolithic or them originating in the east. But they seem to be related to Indo-European, and the best candidates for relationship to Indo-European are found in the east, not in the west. As for Villar, unfortunately he wrote it in Spanish and I don't know that language well enough to read linguistic literature in it.

The similarities between IE and Uralic are just glaringly obvious, if one looks at pronouns, verbal personal endings, case markers etc. Sure, the relationship is not yet proven, but these parallels are not easily explained by chance.

If my hypothesis is correct, the language of the Mesolithic refugees from the SE (Balkans-Ukraine area) wasn't IE-I but possibly interacted with it, thus contributing to its evolution into IE-II. Remember that (unlike IE-II and IE-III) IE-I was agglutinative rather than flexional.

Yes, it was agglutinating. The question is where and when it was spoken, and here our opinions differ.

But I'm affraid there're still many gaps to fill regarding "Nostratic" links.

My interpretation gets along with fewer large-scale migrations. That's of course not a proof that my interpretation is right, but remember Ockham's Razor.

The problem is that archaeological and genetical data point to these "large-scale" migrations. This is Occam's razor too.

Do they? I have looked into the matter, though I am not an expert on it, but at least the spread of "IE I" from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to the Balkans seems highly speculative to me.

[Octaviano]

Sure. Indeed, I have no positive evidence for the names being Neolithic or them originating in the east. But they seem to be related to Indo-European, and the best candidates for relationship to Indo-European are found in the east, not in the west.

Although this is reasonable enough, I'm affraid neither archaeology nor genetics agree very well with this scenario.

As for Villar, unfortunately he wrote it in Spanish and I don't know that language well enough to read linguistic literature in it.

What a pity! Unfortunately, not all the relevant literature is in English.

If my hypothesis is correct, the language of the Mesolithic refugees from the SE (Balkans-Ukraine area) wasn't IE-I but possibly interacted with it, thus contributing to its evolution into IE-II. Remember that (unlike IE-II and IE-III) IE-I was agglutinative rather than flexional.

Yes, it was agglutinating. The question is where and when it was spoken, and here our opinions differ.

I've just come across Adrados' view in the subject. It's found in the last chapter of his (coauthored with two more people) Manual de lingüística indoeuropea (3 vols.) Quite surprisingly, he regards OEH as being IE III because it has masculine/feminine gender!!! Thus he equates OEH with the Old European macro-dialect (Western branch of IE IIIB), although in his last book (the one you read) he changed his mind and said it wasn't IE III, implictly suggesting it could be a sibling of it (i.e. another offspring of IE II).

Adrados' corrected scheme would look as follows:

-----------------IE I (pre-flexional)
--------------------------|
--------------------------V
-----------------IE II (monothematic)
-----|--------|-----------|------------------------------|
---- V-------V-----------|------------------------------|
Anatolian OEH--------|------------------------------|
--------------------------V-----------------------------V
----------------IE III A (polythematic) IE III B (bithematic)

I have looked into the matter, though I am not an expert on it, but at least the spread of "IE I" from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to the Balkans seems highly speculative to me.

Even in despite of genetical data supporting the "large-scale" Mesolithic migration from Iberia to the NE (not to the Balkans!)? In addition to explaining the geographical distribution of OEH better than the alternative hypothesis?

My idea is:

- Apparently IE I originated in SW Europe (including Iberia) about 9,500-9,000 BC and then spread to the NE along with the expansion of early refugees following the retreat of the ice cap, leaving OEH as a trail.

- IE I-speakers then met refugees which came from the SE in the Baltic area, leading to language contact. From this later emerged IE II and possibly other languages as well.

- IE II-speakers were probably in the Low Danube area (or further NE as in your hypothesis) when they met Vasco-Caucasian-speaking farmers and became acculturated by them, adquiring many VC loanwords related to Neolithic technology. Contacts with Proto-Semitic people were also possible in the area around the Black Sea, allowing loanwords to enter into IE II.

- The Black Sea Flood event caused the split of Proto-Anatolian, whose speakers fled southwards into Anatolia, while other IE-speaking people headed in other directions, ultimately leading to dialectal fragmentation (Tocharian, Old European, Indo-Greek).

[WeepingElf]

Sure. Indeed, I have no positive evidence for the names being Neolithic or them originating in the east. But they seem to be related to Indo-European, and the best candidates for relationship to Indo-European are found in the east, not in the west.

Although this is reasonable enough, I'm affraid neither archaeology nor genetics agree very well with this scenario.

I don't think they disagree. I have never seen the migration patterns of your hypothesis being posited by any scholar. And let us not forget that archaeology and genetics do not say much about languages.

As for Villar, unfortunately he wrote it in Spanish and I don't know that language well enough to read linguistic literature in it.

What a pity! Unfortunately, not all the relevant literature is in English.

Yes, this is often a problem. In my research into the relationship between Indo-European and Uralic, I ran into a language barrier: much, if not most Uralicist writings are either in Uralic languages, or in Russian. Spanish is more accessible to me than those languages, but I am still likely to miss some small but important detail when reading it.

If my hypothesis is correct, the language of the Mesolithic refugees from the SE (Balkans-Ukraine area) wasn't IE-I but possibly interacted with it, thus contributing to its evolution into IE-II. Remember that (unlike IE-II and IE-III) IE-I was agglutinative rather than flexional.

Yes, it was agglutinating. The question is where and when it was spoken, and here our opinions differ.

I've just come across Adrados' view in the subject. It's found in the last chapter of his (coauthored with two more people) Manual de lingüística indoeuropea (3 vols.) Quite surprisingly, he regards OEH as being IE III because it has masculine/feminine gender!!!

I can see how he ended up on that wrong path. Some of the names have been adopted as feminines in *-a: in the historical IE languages, others as masculines in *-os. But that is more likely to be due to a dialect difference in Hesperic. The masculines are found mostly in the south, the feminines in the north. My hypothesis is that the names ended in something like *-aH in Hesperic, where *H was a consonant that manifested as a laryngeal or was lost in the northern dialects, and as a sibilant of some kind in southern dialects.

Thus he equates OEH with the Old European macro-dialect (Western branch of IE IIIB), although in his last book (the one you read) he changed his mind and said it wasn't IE III, implictly suggesting it could be a sibling of it (i.e. another offspring of IE II).

Adrados' corrected scheme would look as follows:

-----------------IE I (pre-flexional)
--------------------------|
--------------------------V
-----------------IE II (monothematic)
-----|--------|-----------|------------------------------|
---- V-------V-----------|------------------------------|
Anatolian OEH--------|------------------------------|
--------------------------V-----------------------------V
----------------IE III A (polythematic) IE III B (bithematic)

I have looked into the matter, though I am not an expert on it, but at least the spread of "IE I" from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to the Balkans seems highly speculative to me.

Even in despite of genetical data supporting the "large-scale" Mesolithic migration from Iberia to the NE (not to the Balkans!)? In addition to explaining the geographical distribution of OEH better than the alternative hypothesis?

So IE I ends up in the northeast. Now what kind of migration or language diffusion was there from the Baltic to the culturally much more advanced Balkan Peninsula? Languages usually spread from the culturally advanced areas to the backwaters, not in the other direction. Even if barbarians conquer a culturally more advanced area militarily, in most cases their language does not displace the language of the conquered people. France, Spain and Italy are still Romance-speaking, not Germanic-speaking. Only in Britain did Germanic displace Latin, but Britain has always been a barely Romanized backwater of the Roman Empire. China still speaks Chinese, not Mongolian or Manchu. You are invoking the historio-linguistic equivalent of a river that flows uphill.

My idea is:

- Apparently IE I originated in SW Europe (including Iberia) about 9,500-9,000 BC and then spread to the NE along with the expansion of early refugees following the retreat of the ice cap, leaving OEH as a trail.

I remain convinced that "IE I" (or Europic, as I prefer to call it) originated in the East, because of the probable (IMHO quite obvious, even if you deny it) relationship to Uralic and maybe Altaic and Kartvelian.

- IE I-speakers then met refugees which came from the SE in the Baltic area, leading to language contact. From this later emerged IE II and possibly other languages as well.

- IE II-speakers were probably in the Low Danube area (or further NE as in your hypothesis) when they met Vasco-Caucasian-speaking farmers and became acculturated by them, adquiring many VC loanwords related to Neolithic technology. Contacts with Proto-Semitic people were also possible in the area around the Black Sea, allowing loanwords to enter into IE II.

I have no problem with loanwords in PIE, especially not with agricultural terms. Indeed, the IE/Semitic correspondences claimed by Nostraticists are in my opinion Wanderwörter that spread from language to language together with agriculture.

- The Black Sea Flood event caused the split of Proto-Anatolian, whose speakers fled southwards into Anatolia, while other IE-speaking people headed in other directions, ultimately leading to dialectal fragmentation (Tocharian, Old European, Indo-Greek).

As I have repeatedly stated before, I place the split between Anatolian and "PIE III" later; I have given my arguments for that.

[Octaviano]

I have never seen the migration patterns of your hypothesis being posited by any scholar.

That's means you haven't read enough (and that includes Villar's).

And let us not forget that archaeology and genetics do not say much about languages.

Certainly not, but they're invaluable to trace large movements of people.

In my research into the relationship between Indo-European and Uralic, I ran into a language barrier: much, if not most Uralicist writings are either in Uralic languages, or in Russian. Spanish is more accessible to me than those languages, but I am still likely to miss some small but important detail when reading it.

At least you could try it. Villar's book has plenty of graphics.

I've just come across Adrados' view on the subject. It's found in the last chapter of his (coauthored with two more people) Manual de lingüística indoeuropea (3 vols.) Quite surprisingly, he regards OEH as being IE III because it has masculine/feminine gender!!!

I can see how he ended up on that wrong path. Some of the names have been adopted as feminines in *-a: in the historical IE languages, others as masculines in *-os. But that is more likely to be due to a dialect difference in Hesperic. The masculines are found mostly in the south, the feminines in the north. My hypothesis is that the names ended in something like *-aH in Hesperic, where *H was a consonant that manifested as a laryngeal or was lost in the northern dialects, and as a sibilant of some kind in southern dialects.

I see. This is the same isogloss *(H)al-/*sal- we can see in some OEH roots and it's important indeed fot it gives us insight into dialectal differentiation.

I think this *H is actually the same consonant denoted as *X by Dolgopolsky in his reconstruction of Proto-Nostratic and which corresponds to *H2 of traditional PIE reconstruction, that is, either a voiceless uvular fricative [χ] or its pharyngeal counterpart [ħ].

Ther're some PIE words whose initial *s- is the reflex of a former *X-:
*selo- 'dwelling, settlement' < *XelA 'to dwell, live' (ND 2579)
*sem- 'summer' < *XEm- 'warm' (ND 2586)

This isogloss could explain doublets like Latin abiēs 'fir' < *Haebi- vs. sāp(p)īnus 'fir', a compound with pīnus 'pine'.

So IE I ends up in the northeast. Now what kind of migration or language diffusion was there from the Baltic to the culturally much more advanced Balkan Peninsula? Languages usually spread from the culturally advanced areas to the backwaters, not in the other direction. Even if barbarians conquer a culturally more advanced area militarily, in most cases their language does not displace the language of the conquered people. France, Spain and Italy are still Romance-speaking, not Germanic-speaking. Only in Britain did Germanic displace Latin, but Britain has always been a barely Romanized backwater of the Roman Empire. China still speaks Chinese, not Mongolian or Manchu. You are invoking the historio-linguistic equivalent of a river that flows uphill.

I suggest we forget for a while extra-linguistic arguments and focus ourselves on linguistic evidence.

I remain convinced that "IE I" (or Europic, as I prefer to call it) originated in the East, because of the probable (IMHO quite obvious, even if you deny it) relationship to Uralic and maybe Altaic and Kartvelian.

The "problem" is we don't exactly know where all these (proto-)languages were spoken at 9,000 BC. Even the fact there's a tiny Altaic substrate in WESTERN Europe might be troublesome to this kind of data extrapolation.

- The Black Sea Flood event caused the split of Proto-Anatolian, whose speakers fled southwards into Anatolia, while other IE-speaking people headed in other directions, ultimately leading to dialectal fragmentation (Tocharian, Old European, Indo-Greek).

As I have repeatedly stated before, I place the split between Anatolian and "PIE III" later; I have given my arguments for that.

This is too late IMHO, for a PIE III dating of 3,000 BC is too recent to allow for dialectal differentiation and spreading of historical IE languages.

Instead of looking at the shared lexicon beetween Anatolian and the other branches, you should take look at the non-shared one. For example, the numeral '4' in Anatolian (Hittite mieu-, miu, Luwian mauwa-) is similar to Etruscan *muv- in muv-alch '50', possibly from PNC *mær[tɬ]ə (~ -o) 'handful, armful'.

[WeepingElf]

I have never seen the migration patterns of your hypothesis being posited by any scholar.

That's means you haven't read enough (and that includes Villar's).

And let us not forget that archaeology and genetics do not say much about languages.

Certainly not, but they're invaluable to trace large movements of people.

Sure.

In my research into the relationship between Indo-European and Uralic, I ran into a language barrier: much, if not most Uralicist writings are either in Uralic languages, or in Russian. Spanish is more accessible to me than those languages, but I am still likely to miss some small but important detail when reading it.

At least you could try it. Villar's book has plenty of graphics.

OK. I'll see if any library I have access to carries it.

I've just come across Adrados' view on the subject. It's found in the last chapter of his (coauthored with two more people) Manual de lingüística indoeuropea (3 vols.) Quite surprisingly, he regards OEH as being IE III because it has masculine/feminine gender!!!

I can see how he ended up on that wrong path. Some of the names have been adopted as feminines in *-a: in the historical IE languages, others as masculines in *-os. But that is more likely to be due to a dialect difference in Hesperic. The masculines are found mostly in the south, the feminines in the north. My hypothesis is that the names ended in something like *-aH in Hesperic, where *H was a consonant that manifested as a laryngeal or was lost in the northern dialects, and as a sibilant of some kind in southern dialects.

I see. This is the same isogloss *(H)al-/*sal- we can see in some OEH roots and it's important indeed fot it gives us insight into dialectal differentiation.

I think this *H is actually the same consonant denoted as *X by Dolgopolsky in his reconstruction of Proto-Nostratic and which corresponds to *H2 of traditional PIE reconstruction, that is, either a voiceless uvular fricative [χ] or its pharyngeal counterpart [ħ].

Ther're some PIE words whose initial *s- is the reflex of a former *X-:
*selo- 'dwelling, settlement' < *XelA 'to dwell, live' (ND 2579)
*sem- 'summer' < *XEm- 'warm' (ND 2586)

This isogloss could explain doublets like Latin abiēs 'fir' < *Haebi- vs. sāp(p)īnus 'fir', a compound with pīnus 'pine'.

Maybe. I'll have to look into it.

So IE I ends up in the northeast. Now what kind of migration or language diffusion was there from the Baltic to the culturally much more advanced Balkan Peninsula? Languages usually spread from the culturally advanced areas to the backwaters, not in the other direction. Even if barbarians conquer a culturally more advanced area militarily, in most cases their language does not displace the language of the conquered people. France, Spain and Italy are still Romance-speaking, not Germanic-speaking. Only in Britain did Germanic displace Latin, but Britain has always been a barely Romanized backwater of the Roman Empire. China still speaks Chinese, not Mongolian or Manchu. You are invoking the historio-linguistic equivalent of a river that flows uphill.

I suggest we forget for a while extra-linguistic arguments and focus ourselves on linguistic evidence.

Yes. But the linguistic evidence is meagre, and I don't see how it supports such a migration. And I wouldn't call an argument based on an observed regularity in the spread of languages "extra-linguistic".

I remain convinced that "IE I" (or Europic, as I prefer to call it) originated in the East, because of the probable (IMHO quite obvious, even if you deny it) relationship to Uralic and maybe Altaic and Kartvelian.

The "problem" is we don't exactly know where all these (proto-)languages were spoken at 9,000 BC. Even the fact there's a tiny Altaic substrate in WESTERN Europe might be troublesome to this kind of data extrapolation.

I am not convinced by the idea of an Altaic substratum in western Europe; and even if there is, does that mean that Altaic originated in the west?

- The Black Sea Flood event caused the split of Proto-Anatolian, whose speakers fled southwards into Anatolia, while other IE-speaking people headed in other directions, ultimately leading to dialectal fragmentation (Tocharian, Old European, Indo-Greek).

As I have repeatedly stated before, I place the split between Anatolian and "PIE III" later; I have given my arguments for that.

This is too late IMHO, for a PIE III dating of 3,000 BC is too recent to allow for dialectal differentiation and spreading of historical IE languages.

I don't think so. And most mainstream Indo-Europeanists think the same way. The consensus opinion is that Anatolian broke off around 4000 BC, and the rest began to fall apart around 3500 BC (i.e., a bit earlier than 3000 BC).

Instead of looking at the shared lexicon beetween Anatolian and the other branches, you should take look at the non-shared one. For example, the numeral '4' in Anatolian (Hittite mieu-, miu, Luwian mauwa-) is similar to Etruscan *muv- in muv-alch '50', possibly from PNC *mær[tɬ]ə (~ -o) 'handful, armful'.

I know that dome of the Anatolian numerals are different from those in other IE branches. But your connection between the Anatolian word for '4' and the Etruscan word for '50' is about as convincing as the Flat Earth hypothesis. If you connect '4' with '50', you can connect every numeral in one language with every other numeral in another and 'prove' any relationship you want to prove.

[Octaviano]

At least you could try it. Villar's book has plenty of graphics.

OK. I'll see if any library I have access to carries it.

We can resume the discussion about "Mesolithic PIE from the SW" after you read it.

I am not convinced by the idea of an Altaic substratum in western Europe; and even if there is, does that mean that Altaic originated in the west?

Not necessarily, as the target languages could have borrowed these words futher east and carry them westwards.

This is too late IMHO, for a PIE III dating of 3,000 BC is too recent to allow for dialectal differentiation and spreading of historical IE languages.

I don't think so. And most mainstream Indo-Europeanists think the same way. The consensus opinion is that Anatolian broke off around 4000 BC, and the rest began to fall apart around 3500 BC (i.e., a bit earlier than 3000 BC).

This is where I think "mainstream IE-ists" fail miserably.

Instead of looking at the shared lexicon beetween Anatolian and the other branches, you should take look at the non-shared one. For example, the numeral '4' in Anatolian (Hittite mieu-, miu, Luwian mauwa-) is similar to Etruscan *muv- in muv-alch '50', possibly from PNC *mær[tɬ]ə (~ -o) 'handful, armful'.

I know that dome of the Anatolian numerals are different from those in other IE branches. But your connection between the Anatolian word for '4' and the Etruscan word for '50' is about as convincing as the Flat Earth hypothesis. If you connect '4' with '50', you can connect every numeral in one language with every other numeral in another and 'prove' any relationship you want to prove.

I think I haven't explained myself well. Etruscan *muv- is '5', as muv-alch is '5*10'='50' (Etruscan mac(h) '5' had a different phonetical evolution although possibly comes from the same PNC root). The idea is this root originally meant 'handful, fist' and then was employed as a numeral.

You might be surprised if I tell you PIE *penkWe '5' (there're also finger < *penkW-ro- and fist < *penk-sti-) is a Vasco-Caucasian loanword from PNC *fimk'wV 'fist'.