Re: new book on the spread of IE

On Feb 8, 2:12 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

You've read the book already????? Then please summarize Anthony's
"claim to solve the riddle."

I haven't seen the book yet, but will read it when it arrives
in our library. For the time being I am happy with the result
of Anthony's work, and the praising words of Mallory (which
I well read). Anthony's opinion, solidified in field work, goes
along with my model of language evolvement in Eurasia.
First was the Ice Age language spoken by Homo sapiens
sapiens all over Eurasia, but with the main center in the
refuge of the Franco-Cantabrian space, where we find the
amazing cave art. Language mirrors life, and life is changed
by technology. Revolutionary changes arrived with the end
of the Ice Age, with early agriculture at the base of the
Karacadag near Göbekli Tepe in southeast Anatolia 10,000
years ago, and with the mining and melting of copper in the
Jordan valley and in Anatolia at the same time. This must
have led to a new level of language I'd like to call Japhetic,
reviving an obsolete term and using it more generally.
The next revolution occured with the casting of bronze,
about 6,000 years ago. Anatolia is rich in copper, while
tin is found in Central Asia, so we may well assume that
the first bronze was cast somewhere in the Eurasian
steppes, between Anatolia and Central Asia. Bronze
allowed to make bridles, bridles allowed to tame horses,
and the rest is well known. The new life forms following
this revolution resulted in the language called Indo-European.

The problem, in my opinion, is the lacking time depth of
Proto-Indo-European, and the hapless term proto. We
don't consider English Proto-Martian, and we don't call
primates proto-humans. We use proper names for each
distinct level. In terms of PIE we may call the Ice Age
language of Homo sapiens sapiens in Eurasia, from
42,000 BP onward, Early PIE. I prefer Magdalenian,
which denotes the fully developed Ice Age language.
The language of the early farmers and miners of copper
might be called Middle PIE. I prefer Japhetic (languages).
IE, finally, would have sprang from a variety of Late PIE.
The above model has the advantage of uniting the major
homeland theories of PIE and IE: Paleolithic origin of
PIE (several scholars), Anatolian/Neolithic origin of IE
(an early form of IE, or a precusor of IE) (Renfrew et al.),
classic steppe theory (Gimbutas, Anthony, et. al.).
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: new book on the spread of IE
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  • Re: new book on the spread of IE
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