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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2007-06 > 1181354404


From: ellen Levy <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Megalith Builders
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 19:00:04 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <000b01c7aa36$7cbfd0d0$6400a8c0@Ken1>


Ken:

I agree with you regarding language change.

The problem, however, is that evidence of the
existence of a sub-stratum language are found in most
of the IE languages, indicating that an earlier,
non-IE speaking population was present when the IE
speakers moved in. Furthermore, these non-IE speakers
(who ever they were genetically) left a recognizable
imprint on the various IE languages. The non-IE
sub-stratum found within German, for example, differs
from that found in Greek.

Given this very significant linguistic impact, it
seems likely to me these non-IE groups were absorbed
genetically by the incoming IE speakers, not wiped off
the face of the earth. Could I be wrong about that?
Sure I could. But how would the Greeks have learned
about the fig and olive tree (and their names), the
words for sword and parsnip and chickpea and brick,
not to mention Odysseus and Athena and Hera, if they
moved in and simply eradicated the earlier
inhabitants?

The evidence of sub-statum languages isn't being used
to explain the linguistic differences between Greek
and German, however, or why these two languages
diverged from the main IE tree. It is only used to
explain the presence of non-IE elements found within
these languages.

Ellen Coffman

--- Ken Nordtvedt <> wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "ellen Levy" <>
> To: <>
> Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 6:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [DNA] Megalith Builders
>
>
> > Ken:
> >
> > I don't think a sub-stratum warps a language, nor
> does
> > it represent the concept of how languages in the
> same
> > family diverge from each other. Rather, it
> reflects
> > the idea of linguistic borrowings from another
> > language of the earlier inhabitants.
>
> Well, what's the difference between a sub-stratum
> warping (my word) a
> language and borrowing (your word) from the
> sub-stratum. ?
> The different branches of Indo-European differ in a
> number of ways ---
> vocabulary, sounds and pronunciations, structure
> ...... I can see all of
> these diverging due to both pressures from
> sub-stratum languages or
> isolation and drift. I say "hood" of my car; in
> England they say
> "bonnet" --- the list is long of such drift. We did
> not pick up "hood" from
> the first-Americans.
>
> It seems to me all differences between the branches
> of IE, or of Latin for a
> more recent example, don't need to be explained by
> the nature of the
> previous languages spoken by the people who adopted
> the new language.
>
>
>




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