Re: new book on the spread of IE

In article <646d38ad-b2f1-4139-98d1-b87439e32bdc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Peter T. Daniels <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 20, 7:53=A0pm, "John Atkinson" <johna...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...
On Feb 20, 12:38 pm, ekk...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

<> < It's therefore heartwarming to see that so much research is happening
<> < in mainland nowadays, for people to find out their own past. Let us
<> < not forget what this thread was originally about: the original Indo-
<> < European people. The same is true for Chinese: they have their
<> < languages, and many of them would like to find out more about the
<> < original speakers of the roots of their languages.
<> < [...]
<> < The original topic of the thread is a new book on the spread of Indo-
<> < European LANGUAGES. There is not and never was such a thing as "Indo-
<> < European people."

Let's assume there was once a language which the linguists'
"Proto-Indo-European" is a pale approximation of(though, admittedly, not
everyone agrees that PIE isn't just a linguist's idealisation, and never
actually existed as a human language, which is maybe what you're getting
at (?)).

Then, like every other human language, it must have had a community of
speakers (at least two people). =A0In recent times, the usual situation
among people not influenced by "civilisation" has been for each "tribe"
(numbering from a few hundred to some thousands) to be associated with
its own language. =A0There's no reason to think this wasn't the case way
back then.

So, what would you call the tribe that spoke PIE before it split up into
"dialects", each spoken by a different tribe? =A0 OK, ekkilu could have
said "the group of people who spoke PIE as their tribal language". =A0But
what's wrong with "the original IE people" as an alternative way of
saying exactly the same thing? =A0What else could it possibly mean?

At the very least, it assumes that "PIE" was in fact a language; as
you clearly explained it wasn't.

Do you speak of "the Romances," who occupy most of Europe from Iberia
to the Adriatic? "The Germanics" to the north?

It is not unusual to speak of the Romance languages
or the Germanic languages. I have seen the terms
"Germanic people" and "Slavic people" and some other
associations of people with linguistic groups widely
used, including "Indo-European people". I agree
that this is a gross misuse.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
.

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