Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: What are Scythians?
Message-ID: <petrichCztr9z.Lxy@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <rsavageCyt0CM.5L7@netcom.com> <CzJsFu.9I4@inter.nl.net> <sarimaCzr97q.4oI@netcom.com> <hubey.785762308@pegasus.montclair.edu>
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 13:10:47 GMT
Lines: 72

In article <hubey.785762308@pegasus.montclair.edu>,
H. M. Hubey <hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu> wrote:
>sarima@netcom.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>>In article <CzJsFu.9I4@inter.nl.net>,
>>Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@inter.NL.net> wrote:

>1) What is this "Have Horse, Will Travel" scenario about?

>Even today, whole nations or even families don't just pack
>up and move to other countries and lands so easily. ...

	You might want to ask the Scythians, Huns, Turks/Tatars, and 
Mongols about that some time :-)

... I think what passes for PIE is

>1) Middle East/Semitic -- prefixing type stuff

	IE grammar was big on suffixing and poor on prefixing. It
apparently fit Joseph Greenberg's OV typology very well. Semitic, on the
other had, has prefix/suffix conjugations, and fits Joseph Greenberg's VO
typology instead.

>2) pre IE European--consonant clustering

	Like?

>3) some kind of an agglutinating language like
>Dravidian/Uralic/Altaic [all of which are around Central Asia]

	Typologically, the ancestral IE language was probably pretty 
similar to Altaic and Dravidian, having Greenberg's OV typology.

>I also don't believe that it's possible to pin point any time
>period and not even a place for the alleged urheimat.

	For what reason? One can reconstruct enough vocabulary and 
grammar to compose some half-coherent text. Some linguists have actually 
tried composing in Proto-IE, to the chagrin of their more serious-minded 
colleagues. This suggests, if not a single ancestral language, a set of 
closely-related dialects.

>PS. If the people making up theories did not have blatant
>vested interests in it, it might be taken more seriously.
>i.e. Gimbutas--she's probably Lithuanian or Latvian

	She was indeed Lithuanian. However, Lithuania is some distance 
away from the north shores of the Black Sea, where she proposes the IE 
homeland was.

>     Gamkrelidze - Georgian--naturally he makes contact with Kartvelian

	So?

>     Most Slavic/Russian scholars seem to love the Kurgans.

	Examples? If nothing else, they'd have an easy time being 
familiar with the Kurgans.

>     Asian/Indians lean toward the reverse scenario.

	Like?

>Anything this blatantly political can't be scientific.

	Good grief!

-- 
Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
petrich@netcom.com                   Happiness is a fast Macintosh
lip@s1.gov                           And a fast train

