WeepingElf's Europic thread

[LinguistCat]

Come on, Octaviano. If you're not a crackpot, start trying harder not to look and sound like one.

I asked the mods about you. They said they'd asked you to keep this behavior to "your own" threads. Joerg's Europic thread is not "your" thread. Please either straighten up and fly right (because there really, honestly, is a polite and acceptable way to state most of the substantive stuff you've said here, before you got derailed), or get out of this thread and put all this stuff over in your Vasco-Caucasian thread.

Tom, please stop TROLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

Lawl @ irony

[Morrígan]

Come on, Octaviano. If you're not a crackpot, start trying harder not to look and sound like one.

I asked the mods about you. They said they'd asked you to keep this behavior to "your own" threads. Joerg's Europic thread is not "your" thread. Please either straighten up and fly right (because there really, honestly, is a polite and acceptable way to state most of the substantive stuff you've said here, before you got derailed), or get out of this thread and put all this stuff over in your Vasco-Caucasian thread.

Tom, please stop TROLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

Octaviano, please stop POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111eleven

But please, do see Bricka's comment in one of your other hundreds of hijacked threads; just what exactly would force you to reconsider your hypothesis? In what way is this hypothesis falsifiable?

Figured I should get this stuff into multiple threads, since it is so hard to keep track of everything.

[alice]

But please, do see Bricka's comment in one of your other hundreds of hijacked threads; just what exactly would force you to reconsider your hypothesis? In what way is this hypothesis falsifiable?

Figured I should get this stuff into multiple threads, since it is so hard to keep track of everything.

Actually, I asked the question in a thread I started specifically for him so he wouldn't hijack other threads.

[Octaviano]

What's the problem with you? I'm posting here ONLY arguments related to Jörg "Europic" hypothesis and its postulates, for example, his statement that Anatolian and "classical" PIE shared a common 'wheel' lexicon, which I've shown to be false.

Appologies are welcome.

[Colzie]

What's the problem with you? I'm posting here ONLY arguments related to Jörg "Europic" hypothesis and its postulates, for example, his statement that Anatolian and "classical" PIE shared a common 'wheel' lexicon, which I've shown to be false.

Appologies are welcome.

"Asserted" and "shown" do not mean the same thing. I'm not certain you've yet provided proof for anything.

[Octaviano]

If you have any **actual** argument about what I said I my last posts, I'd glad to see it.

[Radagast]

He has an argument: you haven't shown anything to be false. You have stated that you believe in a ludicrously improbable etymology instead of the commonly accepted one. As clozie says "showing" would include presenting some kind of compelling evidence that all of a sudden would make your bold hypothesis seem not only plausible but as the only possible explanation. You quite simply have done no such thing.

[Octaviano]

I think you're talking about a quite different thing from what's going on this thread. Therefore, I'm going to repeat my argument against on eof the postulates of Jörg's "Europic" theory:

- Anatolian and the rest of IE have a shared lexicon for 'wheel' and 'wheeled vehicles'.

David Anthony (a defensor of the Pontic theory), in his book The horse, the wheel and language (2007), explicitly puts Anatolian out of the common lexicon relative to wheel and wheeled vehicles. Following the Tocharian specialist Don Ringe, Anthony quotes as doubtful the linking of Hittite hurki 'wheel' with Tocharian A wärkänt 'wheel' and Tocharian B yerkwanto, commonly derivated from PIE *H2/3rºgi- 'wheel' (Mallory & Adams, 2006).

Alwin Kloekhorst, in his Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon reconstructs *H2urg-i and relates it to Sanksrit varj- 'to turn around' and Latin vergere 'to incline'. The Anatolian word for 'wheel' doesn't derivate from *kWekWlo- as the other IE languages (except Tocharian).

[WeepingElf]

I have to admit that I am not an expert on Anatolian lexicon, and it is indeed true that Hittite has a word for 'wheel' that has nothing to do with PIE *kWekWlos. I don't know whether other PIE terms for wagon parts are also absent from Hittite. So the terminus post quem set by the invention of the wheel at about 3500 BC holds only for non-Anatolian IE, while Anatolian may have branched off earlier, perhaps as early as 4500 BC.

I still think, though, that it branched off later than the language of the Old European hydronymy, which seems to descend from a form of the protolanguage that had not yet developed ablaut - but I won't swear by that. I am not too well-informed on how much evidence of ablaut there is in Anatolian. The handbooks usually reduce the Hittite facts to the standard model, even though this is probably untenable, as least as much as regards the "loss" of the feminine and similar matters.

I have to make myself more familiar with the Anatolian languages.

[Octaviano]

I have to admit that I am not an expert on Anatolian lexicon, and it is indeed true that Hittite has a word for 'wheel' that has nothing to do with PIE *kWekWlos. I don't know whether other PIE terms for wagon parts are also absent from Hittite. So the terminus post quem set by the invention of the wheel at about 3500 BC holds only for non-Anatolian IE, while Anatolian may have branched off earlier, perhaps as early as 4500 BC.

I'm glad you realized your previous argument was a bad one.

I still think, though, that it branched off later than the language of the Old European hydronymy, which seems to descend from a form of the protolanguage that had not yet developed ablaut - but I won't swear by that.

Of course it is. The real problem are actual dates. For me, Anatolian split after the Black Sea Flood (5,600 BC) and OEH is even older, from Mesolithic.

The link between OEH and LBK farmers seems highly unlikely to me, because the interface between non-IE-speaking (in my own hypothesis, Vasco-Caucasian) Neolithic farmers and IE-speaking steppe hunter-gatherers was at the Dnieper.

[Salmoneus]

Discussion is over. This is now WE's Europic thread.

[WeepingElf]

Discussion is over. This is now WE's Europic thread.

Right. This thread is for discussing my Europic hypothesis. There is another thread for discussing Vasco-Caucasian, which is a matter whose relevance for Europic remains questionable. Also, saying "WeepingElf is a jerk because he believes in Europic" is just not cricket. (Apart from the fact that I don't believe in Europic, but merely consider it plausible. It is a hypothesis, and I frankly admit it is falsifiable.)

It is of course fair to politely point out things that at least need to be considered. The question when Anatolian broke off from the rest of IE is indeed a question of relevance for my hypothesis, and the discussion of that matter in this thread has caused me to take a closer look at that matter once again.

[WeepingElf]

Octaviano's inquiries prompted me to take a closer look at Anatolian again, and I briefly considered the idea that Anatolian could have split off as early as Hesperic - but no. While Anatolian shows many archaisms, it also has such things as ablaut and thematic nouns, and, while lacking a reflex of *kWekWlos, it has a reflex of *yugom 'yoke', a word that probably is not older than the invention of the wheel, as yokes are used together with carts or wagons.

I thus see no reason to revise my chronology.

[Octaviano]

Discussion is over. This is now WE's Europic thread.

Right. This thread is for discussing my Europic hypothesis. There is another thread for discussing Vasco-Caucasian, which is a matter whose relevance for Europic remains questionable.

At least you must recognize they're partly competing theories, for example with regard to the language(s) spoken by LBK farmers.

I also never intented to discuss the VC theory here (this is why some prople accused me of "thread hi-jacking"), although I've presented some counter-arguments and counter-hypothesis to Jörg's. BTW, I've dropped my former assumtion of PIE/IE I being the language of Mesolithic emigrants from SW.

[WeepingElf]

Discussion is over. This is now WE's Europic thread.

Right. This thread is for discussing my Europic hypothesis. There is another thread for discussing Vasco-Caucasian, which is a matter whose relevance for Europic remains questionable.

At least you must recognize they're partly competing theories, for example with regard to the language(s) spoken by LBK farmers.

Yes. My assumption (which I, however, cannot prove yet) is that the LBK farmers spoke Europic languages, while you say their languages were Vasco-Caucasian. My reason to assume what I assume, I may repeat, is that both LBK farmers and PIE speakers appear to have come from the same area, namely where now is the Bay of Odessa; hence, it is likely that their languages were related, and we indeed see traces of a language related to IE - but distinct from the historical IE languages of the area, and in some points more archaic - in the geographical names of Central Europe (and areas settled by the Bell Beaker and Funnel Beaker people, both widely considered daughter cultures of LBK).

I also never intented to discuss the VC theory here (this is why some prople accused me of "thread hi-jacking"), although I've presented some counter-arguments and counter-hypothesis to Jörg's.

Fair. And your comments are welcome. I may consider most of your arguments unconvincing, but they prompt me to reconsider the evidence and to check whether there are any real faults in my reasoning. And I never said, "Get out of my thread, Octaviano".

BTW, I've dropped my former assumtion of PIE/IE I being the language of Mesolithic emigrants from SW.

The "PIE I from the Southwest" thing always struck me as bizarre. What is your new opinion on "PIE I" and the Old European hydronymy?

[Octaviano]

My assumption (which I, however, cannot prove yet) is that the LBK farmers spoke Europic languages, while you say their languages were Vasco-Caucasian. My reason to assume what I assume, I may repeat, is that both LBK farmers and PIE speakers appear to have come from the same area, namely where now is the Bay of Odessa;

But this isn't exactly what archaeologists tell us. For example, Anthony (2007): "The first cattle herders in the Pontic-Caspian region arrived about 5,800-5,700 BC from the Danube valley, and they probably spoke languages unrelated to PIE. They were the leading edge of a broad movement of farming people than began around 6,200 BC when pioneers from Greece and Macedonia plunged north into the temperate forests of the Balkans and the Carpathian Basin. [...] Comparative studies of chain migartion among recent and historical prioneer farmers suggest that, in the beginning, the farming-and-herding groups that first moved into temperate SE Europe probably spoke simialr dilaects and recognzied one another as cultural cousins. The thin native population of foragers was certainly seen as culturally and linguistically Other, regardless of how the two cultures interacted. After an initial burst of exploration pioneer groups became established in the middle Danube plains north of Belgrade, where the type site of Starčevo and other similar Neolithic settlements are located. This central Danubian lowland produced two streams of migranys that leapfrogged in one direction down the Danube, into Romania and Transylvania. Both migration streams created similar pottery and tool type, assigned today to the Criş culture."

According to this author, Criş farmers were part of a cultural and linguistical continuum which embraced their southern neighbours in the Balkans and Aegean area. Their eastern nieghbours were the hunter-gatherers of the Bug-Dniester culture, presumably spekears of PIE and which adquired Neolithic technologies around 5,200-5,000 BC, according to the same author.

The scenario for your hypothesis, Jörg, is that LBK were the result of the acculturation of former hunter-gatherers of the East Carpathians by the Criş farmers (something which Anthony considers unlikely) and also they were linguistic cousins of hunter-gatherers of the Pontic steppes (who became Neolithicizated later).

BTW, I've dropped my former assumtion of PIE/IE I being the language of Mesolithic emigrants from SW.

The "PIE I from the Southwest" thing always struck me as bizarre. What is your new opinion on "PIE I" and the Old European hydronymy?

The answer is "I don't know at present".

[gsandi]

Discussion is over. This is now WE's Europic thread.

Right. This thread is for discussing my Europic hypothesis. There is another thread for discussing Vasco-Caucasian, which is a matter whose relevance for Europic remains questionable.

At least you must recognize they're partly competing theories, for example with regard to the language(s) spoken by LBK farmers.

Yes. My assumption (which I, however, cannot prove yet) is that the LBK farmers spoke Europic languages, while you say their languages were Vasco-Caucasian. My reason to assume what I assume, I may repeat, is that both LBK farmers and PIE speakers appear to have come from the same area, namely where now is the Bay of Odessa; hence, it is likely that their languages were related, and we indeed see traces of a language related to IE - but distinct from the historical IE languages of the area, and in some points more archaic - in the geographical names of Central Europe (and areas settled by the Bell Beaker and Funnel Beaker people, both widely considered daughter cultures of LBK).

Without prejudicing any of the other arguments, I don't think that there is any reason to derive LBK from the Bay of Odessa area. In my readings of European prehistory two main proposals stand out for the origins of LBK, and the Wikipedia article can be cited here (although my knowledge comes from books published well before the Wikipedia, or even the Internet, even existed).

The earliest theory of Linear Pottery Culture origin is that it came from the Starčevo-Körös culture of Serbia and Hungary. Supporting this view is the fact that the LBK appeared earliest ca. 5600–5400 BC on the middle Danube in the Starčevo range. Presumably, the expansion northwards of early Starčevo-Körös produced a local variant reaching the upper Tisza that may have well been created by contact with native epi-Paleolithic people. This small group began a new tradition of pottery, substituting engravings for the paintings of the Balkanic cultures.

A site at Brunn am Gebirge just south of Vienna seems to document the transition to LBK. The site was densely settled in a long house pattern approximately 5550–5200. The lower layers feature Starčevo-type plain pottery, with large number of stone tools made of material from near Lake Balaton, Hungary. Over the time frame, LBK pottery and animal husbandry increased, while the use of stone tools decreased.

A second theory proposes an autochthonous development out of the local Mesolithic cultures. Although the Starčevo-Körös entered southern Hungary at about 6000 and the LBK spread very rapidly there appears to be a hiatus of up to 500 years in which a barrier seems to have been in effect. Moreover, the cultivated species of the near and middle eastern Neolithic do not do well over the Linear Pottery Culture range. And finally, the Mesolithics in the region prior to the LBK used some domestic species, such as Triticum and flax. The La Hoguette Culture on the northwest of the LBK range developed their own food production from native plants and animals.

A third possibility is also mentioned (the East European plains, which I think is north of the Odessa Bay area), but I don't think there is much serious evidence for it.

What language the LBK people spoke is of course for another discussion, and I don't think we have much evidence for any strong hypotheses. Examination of possible substratum elements in West/NW European IE languages may provide us with some clues, but we must be wary of drawing definitive conclusions from such clues.

[WeepingElf]

My assumption (which I, however, cannot prove yet) is that the LBK farmers spoke Europic languages, while you say their languages were Vasco-Caucasian. My reason to assume what I assume, I may repeat, is that both LBK farmers and PIE speakers appear to have come from the same area, namely where now is the Bay of Odessa;

But this isn't exactly what archaeologists tell us. For example, Anthony (2007):

What is "Anthony (2007)"? Without a full name and a book title, such a reference is worthless. There are probably thousands of things written by a Mr. or Mrs. Anthony in 2007.

[WeepingElf]

Yes. My assumption (which I, however, cannot prove yet) is that the LBK farmers spoke Europic languages, while you say their languages were Vasco-Caucasian. My reason to assume what I assume, I may repeat, is that both LBK farmers and PIE speakers appear to have come from the same area, namely where now is the Bay of Odessa; hence, it is likely that their languages were related, and we indeed see traces of a language related to IE - but distinct from the historical IE languages of the area, and in some points more archaic - in the geographical names of Central Europe (and areas settled by the Bell Beaker and Funnel Beaker people, both widely considered daughter cultures of LBK).

Without prejudicing any of the other arguments, I don't think that there is any reason to derive LBK from the Bay of Odessa area. In my readings of European prehistory two main proposals stand out for the origins of LBK, and the Wikipedia article can be cited here (although my knowledge comes from books published well before the Wikipedia, or even the Internet, even existed).

[ quote from Wikipedia snipped ]

In my opinion, the Starčevo-Körös culture is the common ancestor of the LBK and Vinča cultures, which, AFAIK, agrees with the predominant scholarly opinion. It is yet uncertain where Starčevo-Körös came from - it could have been founded by Black Sea Flood refugees, or result from the mixture of such refugees with local cultures. It should also be noted that the 5500 BC dating of the Black Sea Flood by Pitman & Ryan probably is too late - nowadays, it seems as if the event happened about 1000 years earlier, give or take 200 years, and was less rapid than assumed by Pitman & Ryan. (See, for instance, Harald Haarmann, Geschichte der Sintflut.)

Certainly, the LBK culture adopted elements of the Mesolithic cultures of Central Europe as well.

A third possibility is also mentioned (the East European plains, which I think is north of the Odessa Bay area), but I don't think there is much serious evidence for it.

What language the LBK people spoke is of course for another discussion, and I don't think we have much evidence for any strong hypotheses. Examination of possible substratum elements in West/NW European IE languages may provide us with some clues, but we must be wary of drawing definitive conclusions from such clues.

One must indeed be very careful. But I think there is some evidence for a Europic language in the geographical names of Central and Western Europe, be it the language of the LBK culture or not.

[Octaviano]

What is "Anthony (2007)"? Without a full name and a book title, such a reference is worthless. There are probably thousands of things written by a Mr. or Mrs. Anthony in 2007.

I gave that reference in an earlier post, but since you're asking me for it, it's David Anthony: The Horse, the Wheel, and Language. How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes shaped the Modern World. (Princeton, 2007).

[WeepingElf]

What is "Anthony (2007)"? Without a full name and a book title, such a reference is worthless. There are probably thousands of things written by a Mr. or Mrs. Anthony in 2007.

I gave that reference in an earlier post, but since you're asking me for it, it's David Anthony: The Horse, the Wheel, and Language. How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes shaped the Modern World. (Princeton, 2007).

Thank you. I did not remember.

[Octaviano]

No problem. I consider's Anthony's a kind of sequel of Mallory's In the Search of the Indo-Europeans (1989).

[Octaviano]

Yes, I'm. My question would be: is *kwel- "a basic verb" and then an unlikely candidate to be a borrowing? or there're other verbal roots in PIE with the same (or similar) meaning?

Yes, it means 'turn', as in:

OIr cul ‘wagon’
Grk pólos ‘axle’
Alb sjell ‘turn around’, qell ‘carry’
Grk pélō ‘be in motion; be’
Lat colō ‘till; dwell; care for’

I'm affraid Greek pélō doesn't match this root, neither phonetically (PIE *kwe- gives Greek te-) nor semantically. It must be a reflex of *pelHa- 'to set in motion'.

[WeepingElf]

Yes, I'm. My question would be: is *kwel- "a basic verb" and then an unlikely candidate to be a borrowing? or there're other verbal roots in PIE with the same (or similar) meaning?

Yes, it means 'turn', as in:

OIr cul ‘wagon’
Grk pólos ‘axle’
Alb sjell ‘turn around’, qell ‘carry’
Grk pélō ‘be in motion; be’
Lat colō ‘till; dwell; care for’

I'm affraid Greek pélō doesn't match this root, neither phonetically (PIE *kwe- gives Greek te-) nor semantically. It must be a reflex of *pelHa- 'to set in motion'.

Also, I feel that OIr cul may be from a haplologized form of *kWekWlos rather than from *kWel- directly (the semantic shift 'wheel' > 'wagon' is unproblematic, and attested e.g. in Tocharian), but I don't know enough about Celtic etymology to decide how much sense that has. And Latin colō seems to be semantically too far away.

BUT...

Even with these caveats, there remains enough solid evidence for a PIE verbal root *kWel- 'to turn', and *kWekWlos 'wheel' is a clear derivative of that. If there are similar sounding 'wheel' words in NWC and NEC languages, they are certainly borrowings from Indo-European languages for two reasons:

1. The etymology of the PIE word is so clear that it can't be borrowed from any language.

2. The people in the Pontic steppe probably had wheeled vehicles before the people in the valleys of the Caucasus had them.

[Octaviano]

Also, I feel that OIr cul may be from a haplologized form of *kWekWlos rather than from *kWel- directly (the semantic shift 'wheel' > 'wagon' is unproblematic, and attested e.g. in Tocharian), but I don't know enough about Celtic etymology to decide how much sense that has.

Matasovic reconstructs Proto-Celtic *kWolu- 'wheel' from PIE *kWol-o- 'wheel'.

And Latin colō seems to be semantically too far away.

Yes, this etymology seems to be absurd.

Even with these caveats, there remains enough solid evidence for a PIE verbal root *kWel- 'to turn', and *kWekWlos 'wheel' is a clear derivative of that.

Yes, I agree.

If there are similar sounding 'wheel' words in NWC and NEC languages, they are certainly borrowings from Indo-European languages for two reasons:

1. The etymology of the PIE word is so clear that it can't be borrowed from any language.

PIE *kWel- could be a loanword or Wanderwort prior to the invention of the wheel. I don't say it's necessarily so, but a priori nothing prevents it from happening.

2. The people in the Pontic steppe probably had wheeled vehicles before the people in the valleys of the Caucasus had them.

This is at least questionable. If I'm not mistaken, the root was invented in Mesopotamia, where neither North-Caucasian nor PIE were presumably spoken.

AFAIK, PNC has 3 roots for wheel and wheeled vehicles:

1) *hwǝlkwē 'carriage, vehicle; wheel'. Found in Basque orga 'carriage' and possibly connected to PIE *H4welk- 'to pull'. I associate it with solid wooden-wheeled carts driven by oxen.

2) *ʡwilʡa (˜ -ʕ-,-ǝ,-ɨ) 'wheel' (only NEC). Found in Basque -bil 'round' and possibly connected to PIE *wel- 'to turn, wind, roll' (Latin volvō). I associate it with spinning wheels (millstone, spindle).

3) *tɬwɨ̄ri / *rɨ̄tɬwi 'wheel, vehicle' (only NEC). Possibly connected to PIE *retH2- 'to run' ~ *rótH2o/eHa- 'wheel'. I associate it with spoked-wheeled carts driven by horses.