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From: hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey)
Subject: Re: What are Scythians?
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References: <rsavageCyt0CM.5L7@netcom.com> <CzJsFu.9I4@inter.nl.net> <sarimaCzr97q.4oI@netcom.com> <hubey.785762308@pegasus.montclair.edu> <petrichCztr9z.Lxy@netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 26 Nov 1994 17:56:20 GMT
Lines: 152

petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:

>In article <hubey.785762308@pegasus.montclair.edu>,
>H. M. Hubey <hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu> wrote:

>>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 :-)

Genghis Khanids might possibly be the only exception. Even then it's
not clear if it was intended as conquest or extended defense. Some
people apparently think of defense as a good offense. 

As far as I know, what happened for the other cases is that due
to population or climate pressures the weaker tribes simply got
pushed out. It was easier for the nomadic tribes to do that then
to all unite, form a federation and then attack a large civilization
like the Chinese, Indian or Iranian.  


>... 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.

This is reconstructed. I'm referring to the present languages that pass
for IE. It had to come from someplace.  I used the word semitic for
want of a better word. We don't know who was where before we start to
see some records.  If you look at physical characteristics in the ME,
the Omanis and Yemenites resemble southern Indians more than other
Arabs. And it's strange that the Saudis are not more AFrican, even
though there is now a large African presence. If bones are considered
Neanderthal bones have been found as far south as Israel, Iran, Iraq
and Turkmenistan. Some of the bones are transition between so called
modern and Neanderthal. Semitic itself can be something left over
from this contact. But all the consonant clustering and fricative
richness belongs in Europe. ONe doesn't find it in agglutinative
languages like Altaic. Finnish doesn't even have it. It strange to
posit the existence of a language that had both. IF it did have both
then maybe the candidates are CAucasian languages.  It always seemed to
me that old Greek and Circcassion are the only languages (that I'm
aware of to any extent) that had clusters like /pt/, /ps/ except
for some Siberian-Uralic like /ktkt/.  Anyway, the thing is that you're
bringing up syntax and I'm using phonological structure and morphology/syntax.




>>2) pre IE European--consonant clustering

>	Like?

If the IE language was from Asia and agglutinating it's unlikely to
have had so much consonant clustering. If it was in Europe than in
all likelihood it had all the consontant clusters galore and probably
even more than what we find today. What *PIE is thought to be could
be just a composite language with Caucasian and some agglutinating
language mixed with whatever people in the middle east spoke at 
the time.


>>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.


Yes, that's what everyone says is true.


>>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.

You can't construct the vocabulary unless you have already made a 
commitment that you know all the IE languages in existence today. That
means you have already selected the method that you will use to make
the family tree. Then after all this, it's pointless to claim that
what has been constructed is any more scientific than what you
started with. Whatever part of language was given more weight in
the family-tree construction will affect the constructed language.

Besides, an ancestral language, if it did not fall from the sky, had
be descended from another language. In order for it not be related 
to any other language on earth at the time, it would have had to
be descended from the humanoid/hominids of perhaps a couple
of million years ago. If we are dealing with an approximation, then
it would have had to spend quite a few years in isolation--maybe
10,000 years ?  maybe more?  Where can people hide out for such
a long time?


>>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.

Indeed. Since people had to move north into the more hostile regions
later, it pretty much says [aside from the other linguistic considerations
which make Lithuanian, Latvian more *archaic* in some sense] that
the closest thing to the *pure Aryans* are guess who?  :-).


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

>	So?

Next step: maybe it was a Caucasian language after all :-)


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

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

I returned my books, and I'm familiar with the general history
as taught in Russia. All my relatives still live there.


>>     Asian/Indians lean toward the reverse scenario.

>	Like?

Like, that the ARyans were really Indians and moved to Iran and
the rest of the world. That's how it is [was] taught in India since
I've heard this from fellow students years ago.

>>Anything this blatantly political can't be scientific.

>	Good grief!


Exactly!
--
						-- Mark---
....we must realize that the infinite in the sense of an infinite totality, 
where we still find it used in deductive methods, is an illusion. Hilbert,1925
