Re: Shall We All Leave At Once?

On 30 May, 00:19, Andrew <thecr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2008-05-29 01:34:39 +0100, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:







"Andrew" <thecr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:200805281812038930-thecroft@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 2008-05-28 00:55:27 +0100, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

That's bollocks - as anyone who actually had any real understanding of
this subject would realise. There ARE no  "extant accounts of the
general unadulterated historical facts" with regard to proto-Indo

General? I said GENUINE.

Sorry, my misquote. The point, though, remains valid.

European or proto-African-Semitic, and certainly not with regard to

Extant Afro-Asiatic/Semitic texts pre-date the very invention of
Pro-Indo-European.

Which demonstrates nothing. If there are no extant proto-Indo-European
texts you can't demonstrate borrowing except as a matter of judgement
and opinion. And it also depends on which opinion you take - views on
the period of origin of PIE vary by 6 millennia.

borrowings from the latter to the former. They are all prehistoric and
no writings in either of these languages exist. PIE is recoverable only
by the exercise of scholarly judgement and opinion.

Yes, PIE is nothing more than speculation and personal opinion whereas
Afro-Asiatic/Semitic languages can be traced back to before PIE was
even spoken though the just written record alone. If the Hebrew word
for Earth is Eretz then it is demand fucking clear that the
indo-European equivalent almost certainly derives from the earlier
Semitic.

No. That doesn't follow at all. "That word looks a bit like that one"
is scarcely scholarship.

It's the same scholarship which created PIE!

No it's not. There's a rather greater degree of sophistication to it
that requires looking at patterns in the language rather than simple
similarities between isolated words.

Let me give you one illustration of the fallacy you're deploying. Take
the word "tattoo". It can mean two things in English - a design on the
skin and a military march. One word with identical spelling. Under your
logic it would make sense to suggest a single root, wouldn't it?-

And surely "reason" and "raisin" come from the same source - after
all, the French source word for "reason" looks and sounds much more
like "raisin", PROVING that the two are related.

Phil
.