Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!petrich
From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: What are Scythians?
Message-ID: <petrichCzo33v.GtE@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <rsavageCyt0CM.5L7@netcom.com> <sarimaCzJ9tp.n4C@netcom.com> <hubey.785359521@pegasus.montclair.edu> <CzLKIF.D7@inter.nl.net>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1994 11:40:43 GMT
Lines: 62

In article <CzLKIF.D7@inter.nl.net>,
Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@inter.NL.net> wrote:

>By the same token, the nomadic scenario (Gimbutas, Mallory..)
>cannot explain Italic, Celtic, Germanic [and Balto-Slavic ?] in 
>Southern, Western and Northern Europe.  Nor can it explain the
>archaic nature of Hittite/Anatolian vs. the rest of Indo-European.

	I know it seems like a lot of smoke and mirrors, but the 
Gimbutas-Mallory hypothesis envisions the Central European descendants of 
Kurgan settlers becoming less nomadic, but nevertheless spreading westward 
and northward and southward.

>I believe that Renfrew (and Bosch-Gimpera, Colin McEvedy...) are
>correct in thinking that the initial agriculturization of Europe
>("Neolithic wave of advance") was done by speakers of Indo-European.
>An offshoot settled the steppe lands of the Ukraine, where a nomadic 
>way of life was developed after the domestication of the horse.  The
>movements of this (Indo-Greek, or "Kurgan") branch of Indo-European 
>consitute the second phase of IE expansion.

	Not as bad a Renfrew's original hypothesis, but not without its
problems, like how the Central Europeans acquired horses. Horse rituals
are important in several early IE cultures, and they would most likely be
transmitted by some horse-riding aristocracy. Also, there might be some
linguistic evidence of an Indo-Greek "takeover" in the European IE
languages, in the form of some words that resemble the Indo-Greek-Armenian
branch more than the rest of IE; but that does not seem to have happened.

	I wonder if this debate will only be settled if someone succeeds
in deciphering the Minoan Linear A language(s), because if it turns out to
be related to (say) Northeast Caucasian, that would suggest that the
language(s) of Neolithic Europe was/were not Indo-European (according to
Vitaly Shevoroshkin's _Dene-Sino-Caucasian Languages_, there are a number
of North-Caucasian-related borrowings in various European langauges). 

	Another difficulty with the Neolithic == IE hypothesis lies in 
Basque, which is not IE. If it had been brought to the Pyrenees by the 
Neolithic farmers, then their language could not have been IE. However, 
it could have been a relic of the _Paleolithic_ population of Europe. A 
difficulty with that is that the Neolithic expansion appears to have been 
a population expanding and sweeping up the previously existing population 
as it spread. This would suggest that it carried its language(s) with it, 
and the non-IE character of Basque would indicate a non-IE character.

	As to the Kurgans and Indo-Greek, the Indo-Greek expansion can be
linked to the Late Yamna wave, which spread out from the
north-of-Black-Sea steppes starting around 2500 BCE. There was a
_previous_ Kurgan expansion into central Europe around 3500 BCE that 
overrun the local population. This earlier wave could have become more 
settled as the grasslands ran out, and the Yamna Kurgans could have made 
them migrate westward, thus giving rise to the central and 
western-European IE-speaking populations -- and also Hittite from a 
wayward southward branch.

	If late Yamna == Indo-Greek, then the Scythians were simply 
stay-at-homes. 
-- 
Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
petrich@netcom.com                   Happiness is a fast Macintosh
lip@s1.gov                           And a fast train

