Talk:Indo-European languages/Archive 1

Question
This page is really helpful, but I just have a small question. According to the image shown in the page, why isn't Indo-European languages predominant in European nations like Hungary and Finland. What language do they use? Thanks.


 * Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian are Finno-Ugric languages. Does anyone know how to edit the map for Iraq (assuming it's not intended to symbolize the Anglo-American occupation)?


 * Thanks


 * I was wondering about Iraq being in the group. I guess it could go either way, because Kurdish is also an official language of Iraq. Maybe somebody could alter the map, maybe having some countries being striped, when one or more of the languages is Indo-European, but one or more isn't.

Image
The map shows Iraq as being predominantly indoeuropean, when most of the population speaks Arabic, a Semetic language. Or is there something I'm missing? ( Maybe this isn't an error, or but instead reflects the US presence in Iraq? ;) Probably not I guess )
 * I was wondering that too, but then one has to remember that Arabic isn't the only official language of Iraq, but Kurdish, an Indo-European language, is too.

origin of the term 'Indo-European'
Quote: '' "Indo-Germanic languages" or sometimes "Aryan". However when it became apparent that the connection is relevant to most of Europe's languages, the name was expanded to Indo-European.''
 * I contest this. "Indo-European" is not an 'expansion' of "Indo-Germanic". I believe it was simply an alternative used by the french, because they didn't like having 'germanic' in the name. The problem is (was) that 'indo-' may be both a linguistic and a geographical term. "germanic" is a linguistic, "european" a geographical term. "Indo-European" tries to describe the area where the languages are spoken, "Indo-Germanic" tries to encompass the familiy branches by naming two (again, geographical, NW-SE) extremes. I will try to dig up some details on this and amend the article. "Aryan", on the other hand, was an attempt at reconstructing what the Proto-Indo-Europeans called themselves; other names were suggested, e.g. "Japhetite" (building on the semitic/hamitic nomenclature). Note that this controversy predates the third Reich by many decades, so "Indo-Germanic" is not a german nationalistic/chauvinist term at all, and carries no such overtones in german literature -- Dbachmann 08:07, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Satem/Kentum
Could somebody describe Satem-Centum division and basic reconstructed grammar of PIE ? Taw


 * See Satem, Centum
 * Piotr Gasiorowski


 * [deleted statement of my intention to add this] - fair enough, I have nothing to add to that Dbachmann 10:44, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Kentum-Satem has to do with the word for hundred. In some languages the original Kemtum was replaced by Satem. Satem languages include Slavic, Baltic, Indo-Iranian, and Indic. An example would be the Russian word for hundred, "sto".

English "hundred" comes from a different word. In Germanic, Indo-European "k" is sometimes replaced with "h". So, Germanic is a Kentum language. The Latin word for hundred is Centum, so it is a Kentum language too.

An excellent resource for Indo-European is ENCYCLOPEDIA OF INDO-EUROPEAN CULTURE, edited by Mallory.

Satem-Centum, Again
I'm a little puzzled about this being an absolute, since when I took a class in Hittite a few decades ago, one of the facts that stayed with me was that the Anatolian languages split off from PIE either before or during the Satem-Centum split -- which makes this family of interest. (As well as being one of the earliest attested IE languages.) -- llywrch 19:55, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Grammar
I am not happy with the paragraph


 * The entire body of Indo-European, Aryan or Indo-Germanic languages is derived originally from monosyllabic elements. There are two classes, verbal and pronominal. These two grammatical forms combined, gradually formed the rudiments of vocabulary and grammar.

which I feel is not consistent with the previous one. I don't know what to make of it nor what to do with it. Expert linguists please help. -- Calypso

''The paragraph is not consistent with facts either. There are numerous IE nouns, for example, which are not derived from verb roots. Also, "monosyllabic" is not a felicitous description, since roots in a language like PIE are bound morphemes that cannot be pronounced in isolation. Some "roots" may well have disyllabic phonetic realisations. I think the paragraph is simply superfluous, so I'll take the liberty of removing it. If time permits, I'll provide some more concrete info about PIE word structure instead.'' -- User:Piotr Gasiorowski

Article organization, wording
The "languages" articles are inconsistently titled. We have "Romance language" but "Indo-European languages". This is a poor show for a group of skilled linguists. It seems clear to me that, going by the article naming guidelines, we should use the singular for everything. Before I go around re-naming all the articles, does anyone have an alternative view? Deb 09:42, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * I prefer the usage of the plural; generally, we are talking about all the languages in a group, not just one of them. The heading Indo-European languages, for instance, might be better titled Indo-European language family; it shows a collective - a group of languages - not a singular language. thefamouseccles 01:14 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Differentiation between 'languages' and 'dialects' is mostly conventional, but such conventions exist; it is not customary, for example, to speak of 'greek languages', but rather of 'greek dialects'. also, for armenian and albanian, arguably only a single language is known in these groups (including various dialects). Dbachmann 11:56, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think we need to split off the Proto-Indo-European section into its own article. I mean, Latin isn't a section on the Romance languages page. -Branddobbe 08:44, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

I contracted baltic and slavic to a single list-entry 'balto-slavic', to reflect 'indo-iranian'. (and since, as indo-iranian, they really do form a single branch of IE, being closer to each other than to any other IE language) Dbachmann 11:56, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Quote: Popular languages in this superfamily include English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Russian, Persian, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu.
 * what's a 'popular' language? shouldn't this be 'modern' or 'spoken today'. NPOV would ask for for sorting by number of living native speakers. wouldn't four or five 'most spoken' be enough (probably English, Spanish, Urdu/Hindi, Russian, but I didn't check) Dbachmann 12:06, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Non-IE languages
What pockets of non-Indo-European languages are left in Europe? Is the basque language the only one? --AxelBoldt
 * The Finno-Ugric languages such as Hungarian, Finnish, and Saami (Lapp) languages are also non-Indo-European
 * There's actually nummerically a whole heap, just most of them have very few speakers.

--- Estonian is also Finno-Ugric and related to Finnish user:H.J.

Turkish language is not Indoeuropean iirc. --Taw


 * You're right. However, it barely counts as European either. But it should probably be included for completeness. Also Maltese. --Zundark, 2001 Dec 6


 * Basque is the only "Pocket". All others are later incursions (turkish, hungarian migrations). Non IE-languages in Europe boil down to Basque, Finno-Ugric and Turkic, the latter two having homelands in the east. Dbachmann 13:33, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure Basque is the only pocket of speakers of the original languages of Europe - what about welsh? --81.134.180.92 10:33, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Welsh is a Celtic language and the Celtic languages are Indo-European. As an aside, I know that Basque is older than Finnish and Hungarian but I'm not sure how the Celtic languages compare age-wise. &mdash; Hippietrail 00:52, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Maltese, a Semitic language, is one of the official languages of the European Union.

Nostratic
I changed the reference to Nostratic from its previous form, which was along the lines of "Indo-European languages may belong to a superfamily called Nostratic". The consensus is that the Nostratic hypothesis is disproven, but then I was also loathe to removed the link to one of the articles I wrote :) So I just changed it to a "See also". I rationalize that on the basis that there's some discussion of how PIE was reconstructed there. -- Paul Drye

There is no consensus that the Nostratic hypothesis is wrong. Drye seems to be very fanatical about this. I suggest that anyone should simply look up Nostratic in any other encyclopedia and get a more balanced view.


 * Well, I don't debate with anonymous editors, but for the benefit of anyone else who's been wondering what I've been up to, the Nostratic hypothesis inhabits the borderlines of linguistics. Essentially it has the life that it does thanks to the troubled scientific history of the Soviet Union. Afer the Russian Revolution, and particularly after Stalin came to power, politics cut off the Russians in a number of fields -- genetics and its troubles with Lysenkoism are the most famous example. In the case of linguistics, Russian scientists went off on a wild hare about Nostratic and were too isolated to benefit from the better work happening in the west. After the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, they became quite voluble about how right they were, and attracted the attention of the popular press.


 * There are very few serious linguists who give Nostratic much time. As with our anonymous proponent up there, I also suggest that the interested reader take a look around. You'll notice that those who speak of Nostratic seriously in 2002 boil down to:


 * Russians that no-one takes seriously
 * A half-dozen western names that pop up repeatedly
 * Popular press articles
 * J. Greenberg


 * The first three can be dismissed out of hand. Greenberg deserves better if only on the strength of his stellar work on sub-Saharan African languages in his earlier days. Unfortunately, he is generally perceived as another Isaac Newton; brilliant as a young man, off the deep end once he got older. Greenberg's "Eurasiatic"-renaming of Nostratic is seen as the equivalent of Sir Isaac's obsession with alchemy and numerology.


 * I would point out that the best documentary evidence our anonymous author is providing is a link to some web discussion forums, and a pro-Nostratic e-mail Listserv. Whee. A quick boo at the professional literature in the field turns up only refutations of the concept, if they even talk about it at all. Close reading of the recent stuff about linguistic diffusion shows that they've moved beyond the possibility of a reconstructable macrofamily "above" the ones we've got.


 * Not that you need my permission, but I specifically invite any reader here who looks at what I'm claiming here and disagrees to reverse my reversions. I'm confident enough in this that I believe there won't be any takers. -- Paul Drye, who explains what he does instead of resorting to ad hominem.


 * I'd like to endorse Paul Drye's scepticism. It is the more welcome because a lot of macrofamily stuff is being propagated on the Internet and published in the popular press. Most of it makes little sense, but the popular imagination delights in this kind of romantic speculation. I regard this state of affairs as unfortunate. "Nostraticism" (including Greenberg & Ruhlen's "Eurasiatic" variety) remains an insufficiently justified fringe hypothesis, by the accepted standards of historical linguistics. As for Greenberg's mass (a.k.a. lateral) comparison, it is a method that simply cannot produce reliable results, since it has no built-in controls for distinguishing genuine cognates (historically or "genetically" related words) from spurious matches resulting from purely coincidental similarity or from lexical borrowing. As opposed to comparative method, it yields no protolanguage reconstruction, nor does it reconstruct sequences of sound change transforming the protolanguage into its historically documented "offspring" -- which means, in practice, that no-one can verify its results by checking the consistency of the reconstruction. The flaws that make mass comparison scientifically useless have been discussed so many times by so many linguists that one wonders how the method can be taken seriously by anyone. Piotr Gasiorowski

Re: Nostratic redundancy
I've twice deleted an anon's addition of a paragrpah saying Indo-European is "possibly" related to (insert every other language family). This paragraph gets placed after, mind you, the paragraph which discusses the Nostratic theory. I just want a quick check to make sure I'm not being unduly repressive here. -- &#2325;&#2369;&#2325;&#2381;&#2325;&#2369;&#2352;&#2379;&#2357;&#2366;&#2330;|Talk&#8253; 05:20, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * No, you're quite right to remove that part. It seems wholly unreasonable to first mention the Nostratic hypothesis and *then* say that PIE may be related to every other language. Vice 20:49, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * such hypotheses may have a place in the nostratic article, or in an article on the world's language families. in this article, a simple link to the nostratic one should be enough. Dbachmann 11:04, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Caucasian languages, as the whole, have not been proposed as a member of the Nostratic macrofamily. Of course Kartvelian, or South Caucasian languages, have. I have corrected this in the article. --Grzegorj 10:33, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Diagram?
We've got the tree model kinda explained in text, but would it be possible to get an image of the (more accurate) wave model of the various major sound laws of IE linguistics?

Georgian?
Someone just added the claim "The Basque language is unusual in that it shares a 25% vocabulary overlap with only one other language known at this point, Georgian." Is this true? It seems highly suspect to me&mdash;by which I mean only that it contradicts the thing I keep hearing about Basque&mdash;which inclines me to delete it unless someone comes up with documentation for this odd claim. AJD 06:28, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"members include"
Unless we present the 'largest' languages, by number of speakers, the listing becomes completely arbitrary. Clearly, we do not want to list 400 languages in the intro. We used to list languages with > 100 million speakers. We can lower that threshold, to e.g. 70 million, but if we go too low (<50 million), the list will become unwieldy. dab (&#5839;) 13:05, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

IE speakers map
Kind of nitpicky, but... I notice several inaccuracies with : --Briangotts 20:23, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) . English is an official language in Israel, so Israel should be colored yellow.
 * 2) . Orange has spilled over into Thrace, even though it is part of Turkey.
 * 3) . Cyprus is totally absent. Its official language is Greek which is IE.
 * 4) . I am fairly certain French is an official language in Lebanon, though I may be mistaken.
 * 5) . Kenya has English as an official language; it should be yellow.

When you say "Thrace", you mean "Turkish Thrace". Much of Bulgaria was once Thrace and part of northeastern Greece was once Thrace as well. Nothing personal, I just don't want people confusing all of Thrace with Turkish Thrace, which is a mere part of the ancient land. Decius 05:01, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'll fix it. Well, not Cyprus, that's just not on the map, but I'll fix the others, thanks for pointing them out. dab (&#5839;) 10:09, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Wrong maps
Provided maps aren't correct. 3d map wrong indicates territory of Balts - it should be more to the West and North. 4th map wrong indicates territory of Balts as well - it should be more to the West. 5th map somehow shows the Balts and Slavs together. As we know, the Slavs emerged in territory of Lower Dniepr after the mutation of Southern Baltic tribes (mixing with Asiatic tribes). After this emerged completely different ethnos - Slavs. The same with 6th map. Zivinbudas 14:04, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Baltic
Read the article (below) and Germania (book) by Tacitus. Zivinbudas 14:27, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see you got here first after all. Anyway:
 * I don't think citation of a few words in Tacitus is included in what linguists would call "the earliest attestation" of the language. After all, if that counted we would likewise have to move back the earliest attestation date for Germanic, since there are Germanic words mentioned by Roman historians as well. Can you provide a citation demonstrating that linguists would regard Tacitus as the earliest attestation of Baltic, rather than the earliest document or inscription actually written in a Baltic language?
 * "Most archaic" doesn't mean "most similar to Sanskrit". That's just confused.
 * AJD 14:37, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * You write "Read Talk and this article - its indicated very clearly here." What is? (1) The article has no mention of any purported attestation of Baltic in Tacitus, let alone an argument that that would count as the earliest attestation of Baltic. (2) Even if the first century were the correct date for earliest attestation of Baltic, it would go between Italic and Germanic on that list, not before Anatolian!&mdash;that list is in order of earliest attestation. (3) "The strong similarity discovered between Sanskrit and older spoken dialects of Lithuanian and Latvian" does not mean Baltic is "most similar to Sanskrit"! It only means that Baltic is much more similar to Sanskrit than one would have expected, especially without knowing that it was related. "Most archaic" doesn't mean "most similar to Sanskrit" either; it means most similar to PIE. AJD 14:49, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Tacitus wrote approx.: "Their (Aestiorum Gentes - Balts (Ais&#269;iai)) language is closer to Britanians than to Germanians" and "They call amber "Glesum"".
 * Lithuanian and Latvian languages are closest to Sanskrit of all living Indo-European languages  (axactly closest not similar). They are most archaic of living Indo-European languages  as well. These are unquestioned facts.
 * It is known to every student in Lithuania, but it is almost unknown in Western Europe for many reasons. Zivinbudas 15:16, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I repeat: I don't dispute that Tacitus quoted a Baltic word, but I don't believe that a single word of one language quoted in a text written in another language is sufficient to be what linguists would describe as the "earliest attestation" of the language in question. Do you have evidence that that counts as an earliest attestation? If it does, the earliest attestation of Germanic is similarly earlier than this list would have it.
 * Furthermore, in no way does this justify placing Baltic first in the list, as though it were attested earlier than Hittite, Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin: this list is sorted by earliest attestation, and the earliest attestation of Baltic is certainly not earlier than the first century.
 * I don't know what you mean by "closest to Sanskrit" if not "most similar to Sanskrit". If you mean "most closely related to Sanskrit", that's simply false: there are living Indic languages which are actually descendants of Sanskrit. It is an unquestioned fact that Baltic is the most archaic of the living Indo-European families; but your claim that it is somehow "closest to Sanskrit" is either false or meaningless.
 * You've also kept reverting my correction of your grammar.
 * You are now in violation of the three-revert rule.
 * AJD 15:56, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that Germanic should be indicated earlier (See statement about Slavic) in this list.
 * I agree that Baltic should be placed between Italic and Germanic in this list, not below Slavic. As you know (I hope) the Slavs are late formation, emerged from Southern Baltic tribes (mixture) and shouldn't be placed above Balts.
 * OK, if you agree that Baltic is the most archaic, so it is closest to Proto Indo-European language.
 * Sorry, you first started reverting. Zivinbudas 17:13, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I take it you mean Baltic should be between Celtic and Germanic. At any rate, you haven't put it there.
 * Is there convincing linguistic evidence that Tacitus's glesum is actually a Baltic word (rather than just a word from a language spoken near the Baltic sea)? I don't know much about the phonology of Baltic languages, but a Google search gives no mention of a Baltic etymology for this word, and one suggestion that it actually looks Germanic. If you have evidence that this is a Baltic word, please cite it.
 * It is meaningless to say that "the Slavs are a late formation"; no language family can possibly be "later" than its sister language family. If you believe that Slavic "emerged from Baltic", then you should list them together as a single Balto-Slavic family.
 * If by "closest" you now mean 'most similar', then yes, I agree that Baltic is closest to PIE&mdash;although, since PIE is a reconstructed language, I would prefer to say "most similar to the usual reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European" or "retains the greatest number of features reconstructed in Proto-Indo-European".
 * No, the first revert in this particular revert war was this one.
 * AJD 17:49, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * It would be most right. I'll do this.
 * It is deformed Prussian word (Lithuanian Gintaras ). Prussians lived on the right bank of Vistula in that time, German tribe Suebi lived on the left bank of Vistula.
 * I could repeat - Slavs is late formation. Many scientists believe that existed Balto-German proto family. Later it separated to Baltic and Germanic language groups. Slavs formed themselves from the periferic Southern Baltic tribes much later and became completely different group.
 * So you in general agree that Baltic is closest to Proto Indo-European language and close to Sanskrit.
 * I only made corrections in text. Zivinbudas 18:52, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Glesum bears no resemblance to gintaras. Again, if you have evidence that glesum is a Baltic word, please cite it.
 * Repeating your claim that Slavic is a "late formation" doesn't make it any truer, or meaningful at all. If Slavic is a late formation, then Baltic must be exactly as late: that's the way related languages work. The mainstream view among linguists is not in favor of a "Balto-Germanic" family, but rather in favor of a Balto-Slavic family which, earlier, had occupied the middle of a dialect continuum extending from Germanic on the west to Indo-Iranian on the east. If you believe that Slavic separated from Baltic, what you believe in is a Balto-Slavic family.
 * I have no opinion on the similarity of Baltic to Sanskrit, but the degree of similarity of unrelated subfamiliesto each other is not relevant to this list of subfamilies.
 * AJD 19:52, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I repeat - it is deformed Prussian, not Lithuanian word.
 * I described formation process of Slavs 2 times. If you don't understand or don't want to understand :-) I can do nothing.
 * I am very happy that you agree that Baltic languages are the most archaic of living Indo-European languages and closest to Proto Indo-European language. Zivinbudas 21:10, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * If you have evidence that glesum is a Baltic word, please provide it. For instance, if it is "deformed Prussian", what is the original Prussian word that it is deformed from? How can it be derived from Indo-European by means of the sound changes known to be proper to Baltic? We have no reason other than your assertion to believe that this is a Baltic word at all.
 * What you have described two times is a Balto-Slavic family. If you believe that the Slavs "formed themselves" from the Balts, you should list them as such.
 * AJD 22:20, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

The list is not organized by how "archaic" the languages are, that's too subjective. It is organized by the date of their first attestation, which is objective. dab (&#5839;) 10:07, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I think this article has more pressing issues than arguing about the ordering of this list. I can assure you that the sequence as I put it is certainly the most widely accepted one. Anything else is typically people trying to draw attention to their own (always their own, how boring) languages. No, a couple of names in Tacitus doesn't count, unless they unambiguously exhibit sound-changes peculiar to Baltic, not Slavic. "It is known to every student in Lithuania" you bet. Lithuanian is very archaic in some respects (e.g. accent), and it isn't in others. Outside (strangely) the Baltic, it isn't considered overwhelmingly archaic. Some people want to believe it's incredibly archaic, and they'll find evidence of course, but that's just boring old selection bias. Oh, and I looked into it, and I don't think there have been any convincing arguments against Balto-Slavic unity since Semerenyi (1957). dab (&#5839;) 11:03, 15 May 2005 (UTC)


 * In my experience, Lithuanian actually is pretty frequently described as unusually archaic. So I've added back a comment on that point into the article, since it is of interest. AJD 14:30, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Your "comment" is nothing more than bla-bla-bla. Sorry. Read latest books on Baltic. 85.206.193.46 11:30, 15 May 2005 (UTC)


 * blabla to you too. sadly, you are just another lingo-chauvinist-nationalist pov-pusher, mister anon. we have them a dime a dozen on Wikipedia. If there has indeed been a recent breakthrough in Balto-Slavic research, kindly direct us to the pertinent reviews. dab (&#5839;) 13:14, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Dear Dbachmann, please don't make personal attacks. It only shows that your arguments are very weak. Something like "Balto-Slavic family" never existed, like "Celtic-Germanic family" or "Celtic-Romanic-Germanic family" (who are French?). It is stupid soviet propaganda which in stupid West still is in force (book of 1957 (!) - why not "Full set of Stalin's scripts"? 85.206.194.120 14:05, 15 May 2005 (UTC)


 * 1957 is not so bad, considering that the proposition "Balto-Slavic never existed" dates to 1908. Don't call my edits vandalism, and stop edit warring. "my" arguments are linguistic mainstream. If you dispute that, quote authorities, don't throw around Stalin. Really. hello basic common sense and decency? dab (&#5839;) 14:29, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I became involved with this precisely because of such claims of "Balto-Slavic is Soviet propaganda". So the 14 points by Szemerenyi listed on Balto-Slavic are Soviet propaganda? That's interesting, since they were completely accepted by linguists in Western Europe and the USA, in spite of the cold war and all. Are you saying that western linguistics was and is hopelessly infested by communists, conspiring to make the Baltic languages look similar to Russian? That would make a great article on conwiki, I suggest you discuss that idea over there. dab (&#5839;) 16:27, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I suggest you: Zigmas Zinkevi&#269;ius. Lietuvi&#371; tautos kilm&#279;. Vilnius, 2005 (The Origin of Lithuanian Nation). Of course if you read Lithuanian (I have very big doubts). Do you know Zigmas Zinkevi&? He is the most famous Baltist in the world at this time. 85.206.194.120 14:38, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
 * not a word. Do you read Wikipedia policy, sometimes, Zivinbudas? You are making a fool of yourself, and you'll just be blocked for 3RRvio again and again. Funny it should be impossible to find evidence of the blatant impossibility of Balto-Slavic outside Lithuanian literature, though. dab (&#5839;) 15:06, 15 May 2005 (UTC)


 * hey, but your talents might be employed more rewardingly in writing the sadly inexistent Zigmas Zinkevi& article, letting us know more about this man. dab (&#5839;) 15:09, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't approve of the vandal-like method, but I sympathize with the anonymous user's cause (in fact, the history of the article shows that on March 19 2005 I also separated Baltic from Slavic on the list as he is doing now, but I stopped & gave precedence to the majority view which Wikipedia should follow). The article is in line with the traditional view, but it doesn't mention the dispute. Maybe a compromise can be reached, with a note in the article that the grouping of Baltic & Slavic together is very much disputed. Decius 12:37, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Alexander M. Schenker in his 1995 book (published by Yale University Language Series) gives a conservative overview of the situation and the linguists involved, and he ends up with an inconclusive view---he doesn't reject or accept Balto-Slavic. I'll quote his book in a minute. Decius 13:04, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Schenker, Page 70:


 * "The existence of Balto-Slavic as an intermediate node in the development of Baltic & Slavic from Proto-Indo-European was first proposed by the German neogrammarian August Schleicher in 1861. His theory was elaborated on by Karl Brugmann and supported by Jan Rozwadowski, Aleksander Brückner, Reinhold Trautmann, Jerzy Kurylowicz, Nicolaas van Wijk, André Vaillant, & many other Indo-Europeanists. All of them attributed the Balto-Slavic linguistic similarities to a period of shared history & postulated the existence of Balto-Slavic as an autonomous, post-Proto-Indo-European linguistic entity.


 * "Others, like Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, Antoine Meillet, Alfred Senn, Christian Stang, and Ernst Fraenkel, though representing a wide range of views, expressed reservations about a wholesale acceptance of the Balto-Slavic theory. They argued that the features common to Baltic & Slavic are, insofar as they are not inherited from Proto-Indo-European, a product of separate, though parallel, development, enhanced by territorial contiguity of the two speech communities and by their social and linguistic interaction.

of course, I am open to compromise on this. We can discuss this as soon as mr. 206.85 calms down, or during his 3RR blocks. Balto-Slavic should be mentioned as a branch according to mainstream IE linguistics. afaik, there were no serious objections either before 1908, or after 1957, but I may be wrong. I don't know how much detail of the dispute it is appropriate to give on this page, but I'm not opposed in principle. It would be over the top, for example, to say here that Balto-Slavic is unpopular, politically, in the Baltic states, because of their history with the Soviet Union. That is true, but it simply doesn't belong here. Take it to Balto-Slavic. The more recent and notable oppositon we find, of course, the better the case will be to label Balto-Slavic as disputed, even on this page. My view is, so far, that unfortunately, that this case is almost entirely political, not unlike the Finno-Ugric and Macedonian case. These political issues may be notable, but they have no place on this linguistic article. Based on your quote, which is very relevant to the Balto-Slavic article, I'd say scholars are divided into supporters and agnostics? So how about we say "Balto-Slavic (considered uncertain by some experts)", and leave the details to the B-Sl article? You will find serious linguists (the more cautious ones) saying the group is "uncertain". Anyone calling it "impossible" or "obviously wrong" is almost certainly a Baltic patriot. dab (&#5839;) 13:25, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

That sounds like a good compromise. The article should list Baltic & Slavic together in the traditional manner, yet with a cautionary note (or a qualifier) after it. For further reading, readers can turn to Balto-Slavic. Schenker, a professor of Slavic languages at Yale University, ends his brief overview by inconclusively accepting (or almost accepting, he is very cautious) Balto-Slavic basically, though he seems to give leeway for the separatists. Decius 13:34, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Schenker adds his personal view:


 * "This disagreement appears to be largely terminological in nature, & the two points of view need not be seen as contradictory. Since Baltic & Slavic were at the tail end of the process of the disintegration of the Indo-European speech community, what is termed Balto-Slavic is in fact the very latest stage of one of the Late Proto-Indo-European dialects. Once separated from each other, Baltic & Slavic (or at least some of their dialects) continued to exist side by side & underwent a period of parallel development & of outright linguistic borrowing."

He seems to basically accept Balto-Slavic (the line "once separated from each other" shows that he accepts Balto-Slavic in some manner), but he underlines the uncertainty. Decius 13:51, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I disagree wholeheartedly with this phrasing (there is no "tail end" or "remnant PIE", the breakup is symmetrical, that is to say no single group carries the torch of original or most undiluted PIE, they all evolve), but you are very welcome to add Schenker, notably his list of scholars, to the BSl article, thanks for your research, Decius! dab (&#5839;) 13:56, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. We should note that Schenker is not quite an authority on the matter, but he does give 'a feel' of the debate among scholars. Decius 13:58, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Werether it started off as a same branch once is hard to say; after all every indoeuropean language started from same indoeuropean prolanguage. And now Baltic and Slavic branches are usually separated; so I think they should be kept separated, maybe there could be a note that "some linguists considers this to be the same branch", but in general they should be separate IMO. Then again, there are theories that e.g. Indoeuropean, Finougric and some other language families belong to one larger family an dsuch; this is one thing where it is hard to make a real classification I guess. DeirYassin 18:05, 16 May 2005 (UTC)


 * please, it is complicated, and it is easy to postulate anything in linguistics. That doesn't mean there are real experts, and real progress accepted by a real mainstream. Balto-Slavic is not some oddball hypothesis on par with Ugro-Sumerian. It is the standard hypothesis, accepted as matter of fact by the majority of experts, and questioned (but not refuted) by others. Meillet didn't say "Balto-Slavic is incorrect", he said "wait a minute, everybody is so certain, but how sure are we really?", i.e. he was being sceptical, as he should be. Nothing is "dead certain" in IE linguistics. Even PIE is "uncertain", but nobody goes around trying to delete the PIE article, because there is no nationalism involved. My position is not to let nationalists interfere with linguistic articles for nationalistic reasons. There are very good reasons for both the PIE and the Balto-Slavic article. Informed criticism is of course welcome, but Soviet propaganda and Baltic patriotism should not be allowed. Unfortunately, the glowingly patriotic editors almost infallibly are not very informed at all, linguistically. dab (&#5839;) 07:14, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

As I see, the only informed on this planet is YOU. Yes, there are many Napoleons in one place. 85.206.193.165 11:05, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Naive cynic (finally, someone other than Zivinbudas!) just replaced this


 * Baltic languages &mdash; attested from the 14th century, and, for languages attested that late, they retain unusually many archaic features.

with this:


 * Baltic languages &mdash; attested from the 10th century.

commenting, "Prussian language is mentioned in a 998/999 hagiography of St. Adalbert of Prague; rm nonsensical comment - threre is no casual nexus between date of first attest and presence of archa". I'm going to change it back, for the following two reasons: (1) Being mentioned is not the same as being attested. If St. Adalbert actually quotes Prussian vocabulary, I apologize and you should change it back; but that's not the impression I get from the comment. (2) No causal relationship between date of attestation and archaism was implied. The fact of Baltic's archaism is mentioned there because it's an interesting and relevant fact about the Indo-European family which isn't mentioned anywhere else in the article. AJD 21:25, 17 May 2005 (UTC)


 * That's fine with me. But I would like some context or explanation for the claim that Slavic is first attested in the 6th century although the first texts in OCS are from the 9th. What are the 6th-century attestations? --Angr/comhrá 22:21, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Baltic languages group and Slavic languages group are separate languages groups
Dear Talkers, your level of knowledge on this topic is like on the flat.
 * All what you provided above is only discussion of sholars on Proto Baltic-Slavic language which may be existed, like may be existed Proto Baltic-Germanic language. It isn't discussion on present "Balto-Slavic languages group". Such group doesn't exist. There are absolutely separate Baltic languages group (or Baltic languages) and Slavic languages group (or Slavic languages). Why do you defend false using of hypothetic "Proto Baltic-Slavic language" as "Baltic-Slavic languages" in this text?
 * There was mentioned political reason of this in discussion. It realy exists but not in mentioned context. In soviet occupation time (until 1990) russians tried to show that Balts are close to Slavs (which is complet lie). The same tried to show polish nationalists in XIXth - XXth centuries.
 * Only your "arguments" are deletions and blockings. It shows that your position is very weak. 85.206.194.13 18:21, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

When arranging the language-branches of Indo-European, the common practice is to group Baltic & Slavic together as Balto-Slavic, refelecting the hypothesis that they both descended from Proto-Balto-Slavic. It is very common practice, and from what we can gather, it is much more common than those who separate them. The simple mathematics of the situation is: regardless if it is correct or not (it has not been determined conclusively yet), the more common practice is to group them together. Wikipedia being the way it is, the more common practice is the one that is presented. Nobody should be saying that Balto-Slavic has been proven, because it is still only a hypothesis (though with much evidence). This hypothesis though is the prevalent hypothesis. Decius 00:42, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

So in other words, your edits will be reverted by others (though not by me, I'm staying clear of this one, since I'm not convinced either way, and it doesn't bother me either way, since neither grouping nor separating them seems to be more correct to me: it's unclear). I don't know which is more correct, but I do know which has more support from general linguists.Decius 00:42, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

dear 85.206, by your argument
 * Proto Baltic-Slavic language which may be existed, like may be existed Proto Baltic-Germanic language. It isn't discussion on present "Balto-Slavic languages group". Such group doesn't exist. 

would you dispute that Indo-European group exists, by the same argument? Yes, Balto-Germanic, or Western-PIE has been suggested, but is rejected by a vast majority of scholars. Balto-Slavic, otoh, is widely accepted. That doesn't mean, of course, that Baltic and Slavic is the same group. It's really analogous to Indo-Iranian. It existed, but Iranian and Indo-Aryan are two separate groups. Szemerenyi suggested Balto-Slavic split into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic in the 1st century (either AD or BC), so that they were well separated, by almost a millennium, when the first Slavic texts appear. Some people assume an even earlier split, around 1000 BC, so that Baltic and Slavic are separated by 2000 years at the time of our earliest texts. you are being blocked because your complete disregard of WP:3RR. Behave according to Wikipedia policy, and you won't be blocked. dab (&#5839;) 05:55, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Dear Dbachmann, now you are absolutely right! Hypothetical "Proto Balto-Slavic" isn't the same like "Balto-Slavic languages" (group) like wrong is in this article (I will change it again of course). Look at the top of this article -> mark Indo-European - Baltic and Slavic (groups) are indicated separately (absolutely right). Slavs is late formation (apx. 500 BC - 500 AD) when Balts are from the 3000 BC. 85.206.192.240 06:37, 17 May 2005 (UTC)


 * sheesh. Balto-Slavic languages by defniniton are the desendents of Proto-Balto-Slavic. Why is this so difficult to understand? "Balts are from 3000 BC"? Sure, with the same justification you can say, Balts are from 150,000 BC. Because, obviously, the ancestors of the Balts were around somewhere in 150,000 BC, and they spoke some language that eventually morphed into Baltic. Look, it is obvious you do not know much about historical linguistics, and you should probably leave this article to people who do. No offense, but why don't you edit articles on Baltic subjects like Zigmas Zinkevi&? That way, you could actually contribute something, while your effort is just wasted here. dab (&#5839;) 07:05, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

How good it is that not all Germans (Swiss) are such stupid like you are. But I think that you are simply another Slav. Compare both your latest comments - they opposite to each other. I will not waste a time to "discussions" with you. 85.206.193.252 07:58, 17 May 2005 (UTC)


 * If you believe that ad hominem attacks will help your cause, you're dead wrong. You are only making this harder for yourself.--Wiglaf 08:05, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

While not uncontroversial, the Balto-Slavic theory is significant and widespread enough among Indo-Europeanists that it must be mentioned here. Anonymous user, stop removing references to it immediately. --Angr/comhrá 08:29, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
 * hm, now that you mention it, I am also taking a "Slavic" position on Ancient Macedonian language, and even Finno-Ugric was called a Soviet conspiracy. I wonder what that means, now? I do have some Baltic ancestry, in fact, but somehow the Soviets seem to have had a couple of good linguists. It is of course you who is wasting everybody's time. Your next step will be to open an WP:RFC, complaining that everybody is reverting you here, and see if the community supports you. dab (&#5839;) 11:15, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

As User:Zivinbudas continues to violate WP:3RR while thinly disguised as an anonymous, please add his reverts to the list at Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. --Angr/comhrá 11:56, 17 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't think he's even claiming the anon is a different person (but why does he bother to log out? possibly because our blocks on the anon IP range were shorter for fear of collateral damage. I have blocked the 10-bit range of his IPs for 24 hours now) -- Zivinbudas, when your block expires, open your rfc if you must, stop abusing me, try to work on the compromise (good suggestion, Angr!), and be productive editing some other Baltic-related articles! dab (&#5839;) 12:13, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Even though I do not approve of User:Zivinbudas methods, I am still not convinced about grouping Baltic and Slavic under Balto-Slavic based on claims that it is "mainstream" or "majority" view. Have a look in this article in other languages (German, Russian, Dutch, etc) and you will see no such grouping. You can also compare this to how many other Wikipedia's have Baltic-Slavic article at all. Even the references in the Baltic-Slavic article show that current view is rather leaning rather to classification of Baltic and Slavic as individual groups, and Balto-Slavic being mere "higly disputed hypothesis". In short: can anyone give a reliable source, showing that the "majority" has Balto-Slavic as a "mainstream" hypothesis? User:infviza


 * Most of the references at Balto-Slavic were published in a Lithuanian journal by Balticists predisposed to dislkike the Balto-Slavic hypothesis. More generalist scholars lean towards grouping the two together. The quote from Beekes is particularly straightforward: "The Baltic and Slavic languages were originally one language and so form one group". My old teacher Jay Jasanoff, who's certainly widely respected in the IE-ist community, definitely believes the Balto-Slavic hypothesis, but I don't think he's ever explicitly defended it in print. I have a copy of a manuscript of his called "A boy's guide to Balto-Slavic accentuation", which takes Balto-Slavic unity for granted rather than arguing for it. And I think that's the problem--most IE-ists believe the hypothesis but don't argue for it, they just take it for granted, which makes it hard to cite people arguing for it. I think the people opposed to it are the only ones who care enough about the issue to write on it; the people who support it want to focus their time on the issues that are important to them rather than rehashing all the old arguments in favor of Balto-Slavic. --Angr/undefined 07:00, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Dear Angr, see, that is the problem: we are taking dated views of couple of generalists and favour them to more current understanding of specialists. So, you give names of two respected scientists, however no evidence to support a fact that this is a majority, mainstream and current.
 * I know, this is not scientific, but try this: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=%2Bindo-european+%2Bbalto-slavic+-wikipedia&btnG=Search (12600 hits) and this http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=%2Bindo-european+%2Bbaltic+%2Bslavic+-balto-slavic+-wikipedia&btnG=Search (19200 hits).
 * In addition, could you please explain how was it established that Baltistics are "predisposed to dislike the Balto-Slavic hypothesis"? Probably we should rather look at the content of these studies?
 * I suggest that we should stick to Baltic, Slavic classification until someone finds good evidence that Balto-Slavic hypothesis is prevailing one. And I mean currently, not in 1908 or 1957.
 * Regards, --Infviza 07:40, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

My point is, it's probably impossible to get a verifiable feel for what the prevailing view is without actually conducting a poll. I suspect the IE-ists who believe in Balto-Slavic are a "silent majority"; they believe it, they take it for granted, but they focus their energy in print on other topics, because to them the question is settled and not worth arguing about. The best you can hope for is seeing how they group them, and here are two more: Calvert Watkins' American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 2nd edition, includes a diagram of the IE languages, with "Balto-Slavic" clearly marked as such; and N.E. Collinge's The Laws of Indo-European includes an appendix called "Laws of accentuation in Balto-Slavic". The Google searches don't prove anything, because the absence of the word "Balto-Slavic" doesn't mean rejection of the theory. The reason I suspect Balticists are predisposed to dislike the Balto-Slavic hypothesis is that the only recent rejections of the hypothesis I've seen have been by Lithuanians or Latvians, or else by people writing in Lithuanian or Latvian publications. I have now named four contemporary scholars (Beekes, Collinge, Jasanoff, and Watkins) who explicitly support the Balto-Slavic hypothesis. Can you name four contemporary scholars outside Lithuania and Latvia who explicitly reject it? --Angr/undefined 16:11, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

dear Infviza, please read Balto-Slavic. I took pains to cite exactly why Balto-Slavic has been the prevailing view since 1957. If there has been any notable opposition to Szemerényi's 14 point, explicate them there, please, sticking to the linguistic argument. afaik, the topic has been the playground for Baltic nationalists since then, without any serious challenge to Szemerényi's argument. dab (&#5839;) 19:25, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Is there a pan-Balticist movement too? ;)--Theathenae 20:38, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * no, in their case, it's the other way round (Eremobalticism?). For some reason, they don't like the idea of the Slavs sharing in their Baltoslavicity :) dab (&#5839;) 20:52, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * That's still not as bad as Czechs and Poles claiming Celtic roots or Slovenes and Croats claiming to be Germanic. Anything but the dreaded "Slav" epithet. Quite unfortunate, really.--Theathenae 21:00, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Italo-Celtic
discussion moved to Talk:Italo-Celtic, which I will now create. dab (&#5839;) 10:48, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Stupidity
I repeat again - exists separate Baltic languages  group and Slavic languages  group. "Balto-Slavic languages" group doesn't exist, like doesn't exist "Proto-Baltic-Slavic" . If went with your logic, should exist "Celtic-Italic-Germanic languages" group and "Proto-Celtic-Italic-Germanic". Because there were Celts, later one part of Celts were romanised (italised) and later this mixture was germanised (emerged French). The same was with Balts - there were Balts from 3,000 BC, in about 500 BC one small part of Balts (periferic Southern tribes) mixed with Asiatic tribes and from this mixture emerged Slavs.
 * I see your stupidity is without borders (limits). Zivinbudas 13:13, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

As is your utter disregard for historical linguistics, civility, and Wikipedia policy. There are very good linguistic reasons for believing there was, in fact, a Proto-Balto-Slavic language, whose descendants are correctly called Balto-Slavic languages. It is in fact the majority view among Indo-Europeanists, but as is pointed out on the page, the theory is controversial and not everyone believes it. The page as I last left it reflects a neutral point of view on the question of Balto-Slavic; your edits do not. --Angr/comhrá 13:37, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

It is your personal POV and POV of few stupid Western "linguists" heavy influenced by soviet propaganda and Slavic "linguistic authorities". Zivinbudas 13:44, 18 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Saying Balto-Slavic existed is a POV. Saying it didn't exist is a POV. Saying there is a theory that it existed, and the majority of Indo-Europeanists believe this theory, but many others do not believe it, is NPOV. And calling everyone who disagrees with you "stupid" is a violation of Wikipedia policy and may get you banned. --Angr/comhrá 14:00, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean saing "majority"? I have completely different information. Regarding my information, the major Baltistic centre is in Vilnius University and most famous Baltist in the world at this time is Academician Professor Zigmas Zinkevi&#269;ius. As I very good know he never had doubts that Baltic languages is separate languages group. Zivinbudas 14:19, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

I didn't say the majority of Baltists, I said the majority of Indo-Europeanists, i.e. people who study the entire group of Indo-European languages. The strangest thing about this whole thing is the fact that your view of the history of the Balts and Slavs:
 * there were Balts from 3,000 BC, in about 500 BC one small part of Balts (periferic Southern tribes) mixed with Asiatic tribes and from this mixture emerged Slavs

is entirely compatible with the Balto-Slavic theory. It seems that all you object to is the terminology. You say before 500 BC there was an ethnic group called the Balts; after that date some of them broke off, mixed with other groups, and became the Slavs. The Balto-Slavic theory (which is about languages, not about ethnicities) says that at some point in the distant past there was a single language which separate into two branches; one of those branches evolved into the modern Baltic languages and the other into the modern Slavic languages. According to the Balto-Slavic theory, the best name for the language spoken before 500 BC (by your dating) is Proto-Balto-Slavic. After 500 BC the languages evolved separately: those who did not "mix with Asiatic tribes" spoke Proto-Baltic, while those who did "mix with Asiatic tribes" spoke Proto-Slavic. Thus the only difference between your theory and the Balto-Slavic theory is in the names, not in content. --Angr/comhrá 14:54, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Dear Friend, then please see to the top of this discussion. Why don't you use  "Celtic-Italic-Germanic languages" group and Proto-Celtic-Italic-Germanic. Why is used Celtic languages group and Italic (including French) languages group??? Please answer me why? I repeat this question may be 5th time. Zivinbudas 15:07, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Because there is no evidence that the Celtic, Italic, and Germanic groups ever had a common linguistic ancestor later than Proto-Indo-European. --Angr/comhrá 15:19, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

OK, then answer me who are French? Why don't you use Celtic-French (Celtic-Italic-Germanic mixture) languages  group??? Why don't you use Proto-Celtic-French??? If even agree that "Proto-Baltic-Slavic" existed, temporary Baltic and Slavic languages groups are completely separate. And don't you think that Baltistic is part of Indo-Europeistic? I think it is very important part. Zivinbudas 15:27, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Who the French ethnic group is is a different question from what the French language is. The French language is a Romance language descended from Latin descended from Proto-Italic descended from Proto-Indo-European. The modern ethnicity called "French" is of course a mixture of Italic, Celtic, and Germanic, but that is irrelevant to linguistics. Is Baltic linguistics a part of Indo-European linguistics? Of course it is, but the scholars who concentrate on the Baltic languages are not the same people as the scholars who concentrate on Proto-Indo-European. --Angr/comhrá 15:39, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

So where did dissapeare Celtic language background from French? I think you are not right, sorry. Celtic despite that from it separated many branches, still is Celtic not "Celtic - Mixture" or "Proto-Celtic-Mixture". You never understand Indo-European if you don't understand Baltic. It is very good known canon in Lithuania. Zivinbudas 15:50, 18 May 2005 (UTC)


 * The Celts in France (rather, in Gaul) began speaking a Gaulish variety of Latin that later evolved into French. French has some Celtic loanwords, of course, but it's still a Romance language, not a Celtic one. As for the position of Baltic within Indo-European studies, it's important of course, but Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Greek, Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Anatolian, and Tocharian are equally important. --Angr/comhrá 15:57, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Thats, thats, thats (!) what I wanted to hear from you. There are some elements of Baltic in Slavic languages, but it is still Slavic, not Baltic (!). So folowing your logic should be  "Celtic-French"  and  "Proto-Celtic-French" . Congratulations! Zivinbudas 16:06, 18 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Where did the elements of Baltic in Slavic languages come from? From the fact that Balts and Slavs lived close to each other, or from the fact (asserted by you above) that the Slavs descended from the Balts? --Angr/comhrá 16:19, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Very variuous. Mostly (absolute amount) from late contacts. But French 100% are direct descendants of Celts. Zivinbudas 16:25, 18 May 2005 (UTC)


 * You've stated your position on the origin of the Slavic people: you believe they started as a group of Balts who intermixed with Asians. What is your position on the origin of the Slavic languages? --Angr/comhrá 16:34, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

My position is what I stated. And my position is that PRESENT Baltic languages group and PRESENT Slavic languages group are SEPARATE languages groups  like separate are Celtic and French. Zivinbudas 16:41, 18 May 2005 (UTC)


 * You stated your position on the Slavic ethnicity, not the Slavic languages. If you believe the Slavic languages ultimately descend from the same post-PIE proto-language as the Baltic languages, you believe in the Balto-Slavic theory, even if you don't like the name. If you only care about the present situation, you may as well say there's no such thing as Baltic languages since Latvian and Lithuanian are separate languages. --Angr/comhrá 16:51, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

I finish discussion. I'm sure you understood situation very good. And I feel I have right to change false statement in this article, which I will do in future (today my limit finished). Bye and think about Celtic. Best regards. Zivinbudas 17:01, 18 May 2005 (UTC)


 * There is no false statement in this article. The article states that most Indo-Europeanists believe the Balto-Slavic theory, which is a fact. You don't have to believe in the theory, but you cannot deny that it exists. --Angr/comhrá 17:17, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Zivinbudas, you obviously have no clue what you are talking about. That is fair enough, but your stubbornness makes you worthless as a Wikipedia editor. We will take you to rfc, we will take you to arbcom, and you will not have changed a single letter of this article. Now if you were ready to listen, think and compromise you could have an influence, but I'm not holding my breath. Angr, do you have the energy to open an rfc on this? let's get this over with. dab (&#5839;) 19:38, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

I have started an RfC against Zivinbudas for his behavior on this page. --Angr/comhrá 22:33, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

"Four branches"
Is it just me, or does the "Four branch" idea newly added to the article by an anonymous (actually, by User:Botteville) seem like bad science (four, neat symmetrical branches, with a quasi-mystical, mythical, almost biblical feel to it)? I notice that the new external link added has a Mysteries of the Bible homepage... Decius 08:34, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

The only thing I agree with from the new addition is that the Satem/Centum split should not be viewed as a split between "two branches", one eastern, one western. But a four-branched concoction is not much better. Decius 08:41, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, some of the material can be restored once the references are quoted on this talk page, if any authorized references exist for it. Decius 09:04, 24 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I wondered about that link to the Mysteries of the Bible page myself, although the article itself is by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, who are famous for being the inventors and main proponents of the "glottalic theory", not for being Biblical. And the "four branch" idea definitely struck me as original research too, which is why I stuck the tag on it. I for one am not sorry you deleted it. --Angr/undefined 09:18, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Hi angr and decius. Patience. Don't discard something good for my lack of skill at this. I've been trying to "talk" to angr without too much success. Maybe this will actually appear on the talk page.

For the Biblical Reference, it is not really a Biblical Reference. I noticed that the site put G&I's now famous article from Scientific American online. In this article they make a new proposal about how Indoeuropean got distributed. They are in fact the source of one of the theories mentioned in the article above, which does not cite them as a reference. The theory is theirs, that IE originated in the Near/Middle east and moved in a circle around the Caspian. It attributes bronze age innovations to them that had not been attributed to them before. In opposition, the kurgan theory identifies the IE as various cultures in south Russia. Everyone knows that Gimbutiene developed the archaeological details. It supports the location hypothesized from a study of IE vocabulary by earlier IE linguists. In other words, one disadvantage of G&I is that they break from tradition, and that is probably why the article appears in Scientific American. Do you have some objection to it appearing on a Biblical site? Do you know of some other site where it is? If so, how about one of YOU putting in the reference? By the way, it has nothing to do with the 4-dialect scheme. I just thought readers ought to have access to that article and did not know how to tie it in to the early Bronze Age theory.

Now to the issue at hand. angr, I'm surprised at you, as you are a linguist. First of all, it is not a 4-dialect scheme. Anatolian is from an earlier phase. You might regard it as a 5th dialect region. Second, none of this is mine or is original. I once took a seminar under Calvert Watkins (a charming man.) Being somewhat out of date, I asked him what happened to the centum/satem theory, which had been gospel in my classics days. He explained to me how he defended the theory tooth and nail, but so many exceptions were found he at last had to discard it. He found himself especially in opposition to his now notable student, Craig Melchert, whom I had the good luck to meet. Melchert is a Hittite scholar now. Our material for the course was an an article (among others) entitled "Proto-Indo-European Comparison and Reconstruction", which was going to be translated into Italian and appear as "Proto-Indoeuropeo. Comparazione E Ricostruzione" for "Le Lingue indoeurope, a cura di Anna Giacalone e Paolo Ramat Bologna: Societa Editrice il Mulino." This was the 1991 cut. In this article Watkins uses the terms quadrants and "dialectical affinities" and states the scheme with the language assignments as I had it.

Is Watkins a good enough authority for you? Now, I have looked for other explicit references to this scheme and cannot find them. My paper resources are somewhat limited. However, many works imply the scheme, such as the Encyclopedia Britannica. The idea of a common-Germanic-Balto-Slavic is mentioned by a number of sources. We can probably dig one out online. Watkins just falls short of publishing the quadrant idea in his diagram in the American Heritage Dictionary, which you can get for free online (remarkably valuable, hey?). He has the languages grouped as they appear in the course material, but they are not labeled north south, etc. Once the dictionary gets published in paper (5th edition), they can't change it online. The regional scheme is pretty well known and I am surprised you do not know it already.

Also, I am having an issue with your "authorized reference" concept. Just what reference would be authorized, one of which only YOU approve? G&I weren't too authorized, and yet they appear here in shadow form, without an explicit reference. What if they were to make a contribution. Would that be original work and would it be allowed? We need some flexibility here, and I notice many seem to have it. But none of my changes are original, unless I get something wrong. It strikes me (on the back of the  head) that you might be playing the part of Robespierre, cleaning up politics in the people's assembly. On what basis do you judge a 4-way or rather 5-way grouping too pat? Why reject it and keep an obsolete 2-way grouping, which is even more simple? I'd rather see us multiply sections, one for each observed set of affinities.

But here is what I propose. Without these dialect regions the article does not reflect Indoeuropean studies the way they are now. I'm pretty sure no one puts Armenian with Sanskrit now. Greek and Latin are no longer regarded as being from a common Graeco-Latin ancestor, as they were in my classics days. The Armenians themselves say Armenian is from Phrygian and they from the Balkans. Decius, why don't you look into it and work up a nice paragraph on it? angr, don't you have a friend in historical linguistics whom you can ask? If you can't work up a paragraph or two yourself, how about putting mine back so that people can work on it?

I have been reading over some of the comments and I noticed the vituperation right away. I suppose that is endemic to democracy. I think you are right in trying to weed out "cranks" committed to a view for ideological reasons. I'm not one of them, and if I could have come up with some original stuff I would have published it and would now be a famous linguist. Well boys, time for a reality check. Put your efforts where you comments are. Come up with an article.

Oh by the way, that article on centum/satem is initially incomprehensible, though it gets better. The satem change is mainly that intial palatal velars get to be sibilants of some sort in the satem languages. This change moves in on the other dialect regions, separating, for example, Germanic from Balto-Slavic. There were no doubt political reasons, as the Balto-Slavics were among the Skythians, whom the Germanics hated, according to the sources. Anyway, the article does not even give us the centum and the satem as examples. If nobody else will improve it I will have to try my hand.

I await your replies with bated breath. Botteville 11:20, 25 July 2005 (UTC)


 * If G&I proposed the 4-branch hypothesis in an issue of Scientific American, it would have been better to list that article directly as a reference (write "(Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1990)" after the sentence outlining their view, and then give the full reference at the bottom of the page). Doing that has more credibility than adding the 4-branch hypothesis with no mention of whose idea it was, and then adding an external link to a site that looks academically dubious. The same with Watkins, if he's published anything on it. Of course I'm aware that Melchert showed Luwian kept all three velar types separate; I'm the one who added the information to Proto-Indo-European language and Luwian language. The article as it stands does, in my opinion, reflect the current view of "mainstream" Indo-Europeanists: it doesn't group Armenian with Sanskrit, or Greek with Latin, or anything else except Baltic with Slavic and Indic with Iranian, both of which groupings are pretty widely believed (Balto-Slavic rather less so than Indo-Iranian). Armenians may believe their language comes from Phrygian, but considering how sparsely Phrygian is attested, it would be irresponsible to say so in the article, and I notice Phrygian language, most of which was written by Decius, says Phrygian is closest to Greek.


 * An "authorized reference" is one that appeared as a peer-reviewed publication, in a journal, a volume of collected papers, or a monograph. Websites, unpublished manuscripts, and self-published works are not as reliable. G&I's paper is authorized since it appeared in a journal, although obviously articles in linguistics journals are preferable to ones in popular science journals. (I've noticed that the linguistics that gets published in Scientific American tends to be the kind of linguistics that couldn't get published in linguistics journals.)


 * I don't know which article on centum/satem you mean, since there are two: Centum and Satem. (I believe they should be merged into a single article, but I haven't done anything about it yet.) It's pointless to speculate on possible "political" reasons why a sound change didn't happen, and frankly it's not very likely. The Germanic tribes may have hated the Scythians, but that didn't stop them from borrowing the word path from them. --Angr/undefined 06:26, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Botteville, that material I removed was so riddled with unsourced dogmatic statements and wild claims, that I'm not sure where to begin in criticizing it. I won't even bother to give an extensive criticism of it, for now I will note the vast number of assumptions that it incorporates, such as the existence of a Celtic-Italic-Tocharian branch of Indo-European. Last time I checked, Celtic-Italic has been seriously undermined if not dismissed, not to mention adding Tocharian to the salad. Germanic has been associated vaguely with Balto-Slavic, but there is no agreement on a "Germano-Balto-Slavic" branch of IE, let alone a "Germano-Balto-Slavo-Albanian" branch.


 * You mentioned a "Fifth branch" to the scheme. Adding a "Fifth branch" does not make it more credible, any more than adding "Ether" to Empedocles's Four elements makes his theory scientific enough to justify a complete rewriting of Particle physics.


 * Unless you come up with suitable references for the text, it will be edited away completely. If you come up with some references, then add a short description of it. In any case, the text that was removed cannot be restored as it was stated. For example, after describing a "Western branch" made up of Celtic, Italic, and Tocharian, you go on to say "One question remaining is the route by which the Tocharians migrated into the bla bla basin"---One question remaining? So I guess there is absolutely no question whether Celto-Italo-Tocharian even existed? That's quite interesting. Decius 10:25, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

angr, Thanks for your points of view. I notice the dialect region article was put back in then blocked by an administrator, who is insisting on the reference. OK, fair enough. Eventually I will find one, unless someone else does first, and then I will revisit in some form. From what you say it seems we don't disagree. Really, I don't understand why the matter has not come up before.

These replies are getting pretty sprawling so I am going to get more concentrated. About the centum/satem article, I changed my mind. It makes better sense when you follow the centum and satem references. Leave it. You'll probably see me from time to time in other places or I might have a minor edit or two. My objective is mainly clarity (and completeness) as it was my main skill during my career. About the Scythians, here we go again. The beginning linguistics books it seems to me do espouse the idea that politics is the main determinant of the direction language use and evolution take. For example, when the Circassians were under the soviets, it seemed as though Circassian was going to disappear. You can finish the thought yourself. Around where I live are a number of native American minor languages, but the speakers don't use them, as they have become impovershed in favor of English. Also, why call me speculative when the whole field is speculative? I grant you some are more speculative than others. But, another time, as this does not impact anything I wrote or read here except for this discussion. Ciao.

Decius, I only have two things to say to you right now. First, I really enjoyed your original material, which you published on your user page. Do you have a paper reference or a web site? Second, with regard to your provocative comment about bad science and your rash latest comments (it is a good thing I am not in AK-47 range), do you bite your nail at me, sir?

PS. We seem to be doing some simultaneous editing. Perhaps we got something going here. At last we are getting somewhere. Of course there is not one question remaining. Of course the whole thing is hypothetical and theoretical. This is only one theory. That is all you get in this field, theories and hypothetical type statements. There are no and can never be any scientific facts, unless someone can figure out a way to restore an ancient brain from old DNA. Maybe I should have used the term "theory" in the title of my now controversial section. Also, in English, the term "one problem" implies there may well be others. If I had meant there was only one, I would have said "the one remaining problem." No need to grab for the AK-47. With regard to your contentiousness, I repeat, "Do you bite your nail at me, sir?"

Bottevill 06:40, 26 July 2005 (eastern)


 * Bring your references, otherwise one can add any number of theories into the text. I find it very rash of you to have added such material into the article, phrased in such a manner, without even providing the suitable references. As for whether I had any venom directed at you when I removed the material, I will let you know that when I first removed it, I didn't care whether it was written by "User:Botteville" or an Anonymous User. I removed it based on its content. Decius 11:27, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * "One question remaining"---the problem I have with it is that I consider it an example of rhetoric intended to have a certain effect. Decius 12:27, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * By the way, if this "Four branches" (or Five, if you add the ethereal Anatolian languages) scenario is the "most dominant" view in America, I wonder why you have such a problem finding suitable references ... Decius 13:07, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Decius, when did Botteville ever call it the most dominant view in America? --Angr/undefined 13:19, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Right here on his Talk Page:User Talk:Botteville. Decius 13:21, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay, Botteville, I'm pretty sure you're wrong about the quadrant view being dominant in America, and I'm pretty sure the theory itself is wrong, even if some scholars proposed it in the past. In terms of the article, if this quadrant theory is to be mentioned, its current standing, as well as the many problems with the theory, must be specified. I have no problem with you discussing these details on your personal pages, and that would infact be somewhat interesting. However, adding it to this article is another matter. I doubt that the theory has enough support for it to be given such prominence in the article. Decius 15:02, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * This article you started also needs more sources and NPOV-ing:North Indo-European. Decius 15:27, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Proposed Timeline
I'm not trying to be dogmatic, but some sort of approximate timeline, and a common nomenclature would be helpful.

It is recognized that at no time was the proto-language in a state of monolithic unity, but rather, was a series of overlapping dialects, some of which in comparison to others likely verged on independent languages.

I locate the Urheimat in the Sredny Stog culture, north of the Sea of Azov.


 * 4600-4000 PIE with Anatolian, Proto-Indo-Euro-Anatolian
 * Anatolian left before the domestication of the horse; it probably entered Anatolia from the West, across the Bosphorus/Hellespont; an entry via the Caucasus is possible but less likely.


 * 4000-3600 PIE sans Anatolian, Proto-Indo-European
 * Domestication of the horse, perhaps done by IEs; certainly, they were the first to exploit it.


 * 3600-3400 PIE sans Tocharian, Common Indo-European
 * Germanic seems to have skedaddled not too much later than Tocharian, and the two may have actually been close to each other at the earliest dates. My opinion is that both were located at the northern fringe of the Urheimat.

--FourthAve 06:28, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 3400-3000 Centum-Satem break, Western IE, Eastern (or Central) IE
 * 3000-2500 Full breakup into independent languages.

That certainly makes sense, is EIEC-compatible, and it should be easy to reference the details from Kurgan supporters. It is also certainly the prevalent opinion, and deserves a detailed writeup here. Renfrew's theory has of course to be mentioned still, and put in perspective. Also, the individual points all need some discussion. I certainly agree with the general picture, but not necessarily with the early split of the Anatolians (before horse domestication? why? what about the Maikop culture? couldn't they be the proto-Anatolians, separate, but still in contact with main IE-land until ca. 3000?) Also, horse 'domestication' is difficult to date, it may predate 4000 in its early stages. The Germanic-Tocharian hypothesis needs sources. Almost any combination has been suggested by somebody, at some point, and it is pointless to enumerate these in this article. Late 4th millennium satemization surely postdates breakup into proto-Dialects, but I agree that 2500 is a good date to end this story, with probably all proto-languages in place (Anatolian, Greek, Aryan and "Beaker IE", at least). dab (&#5839;) 09:51, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
 * for satemization, you're probably right. Horse domestication is a thorny issue. The major book has yet to be written. Everything I've read points to 4000 or so, tho' it seems to have started out as a meat animal, just like cattle. But the wheel also dates ca 4000, which gets into other issues.

Also, I would much like a decent map of this. The best I have done so far is this and frankly, it's rather poor (note that my "Urheimat" is the Samara culture, but I do suppose that in PIE times (4000), dialects were already spread all the way between the Sea of Azov and the Samara bend, and beyond). Unfortunately, the map we use for European cultures, here, breaks off just east of the Black Sea. We desperately need a map of comparable quality, showing the coastline and the major rivers, extending to beyond the Caspian. I have been looking around, but so far I haven't found one. My old map was done with a blank map from the Xerox mapserver, which sadly is not around anymore. dab (&#5839;) 09:55, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Maps
Yes, I saw the map at Kurgan. It reminds me I have to do Ezero culture 3300-2700 BC next -- it relates to Troy and penetration up the Danube and possibly Baden culture. See map User Geo Swan did for me for Afanasevo culture. We certainly do need good maps.

Have you fiddled around here glovis, US geo survey. I don't know how to save the images, but I did pull up a gorgeous satellite view of the Samara Bend. --FourthAve 11:55, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I also don't know how to upload maps into wiki.
 * copyright free downloadable (jpg) scalable maps of anywhere in the world.
 * also this site that I can't make work

yes, satellite images are readily available, but they give you TMI, and yet the main rivers are hardly visible. the aquarius one is the best online tool I could find, on a par with the perseus atlas tool. the planiglobe one is useless. What I want, however, are blank maps of this quality, otherwise we'll just invest our time in a map that will have to be redone anyway. The perseus atlas unfortunetely gives you every brook from vector data, yielding ugly maps like this one.

here are some perseus maps of the urheimat, if you can look at them before they purge their cache: dab (&#5839;) 07:05, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

See also: meta:Wikimaps, meta:Maps, Blank maps, dab (&#5839;) 07:20, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

hey, so the aquarius thing is actually not bad at all, if you download the map as ps. See Image:Pontic caspian blank map.png and start painting :o) dab (&#5839;) 07:36, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Barber has an excellent map of the first chariots. I had intended to do such a map, but I don't manage to open the map in my computer (ps format).--Wiglaf 09:19, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
 * It would do with a map centered on the Urals.--Wiglaf 09:20, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
 * are you warming up to the chariot article? I was going to do such a map too, sometime. But shouldn't we show the chariot's expansion in a single map? For that we would need a map reaching from Denmark to China, the carre projection is unsuitable for that, we'd need something along the lines of Image:Uralic-Yukaghir.png. dab (&#5839;) 09:28, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Sure, it can wait. I curse the fact that I don't remember where I have the compendias from my archaeology classes. They contained good maps of the corded ware culture, ertebölle culture, funnelbeaker culture etc.--Wiglaf 09:31, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
 * you need the GIMP, btw, to open the postscript maps. I say 'resolution' 200, and some fantastically big image size, which I then crop, and increase the lightness of the brown 'land'. the elevation data is quite rough, it seems, it looks good at continental scale, but zooming down to Greece, it looks quite bad (Crete is flat, some hieght lines go across lakes, etc.) dab (&#5839;) 09:38, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
 * My Gimp says that there is some kind of error opening the file. I'll try again later.--Wiglaf 09:43, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Problems with the Images
I got a problem with this image: Image:IE 1500bp.png: it shows a continuous bar of Latin (blue) stretching from Istria through upper Pannonia into Transylvania (Dacia)---that seems to be erroneous. Exactly what century is this supposed to represent? It's not accurate for 500 AD or any century. Decius 11:17, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Also, the 500 BC image is outrageous, and almost all of Thrace appears to be Celtic---when did that happen? Thrace was predominantly Thracian in 500 BC, no question. And Dacia was heavily Thracic (Getae)and Scythic (Agathyrsi) around that that time. Ancient Macedonian is not even shown above Greek, etc. etc. Decius 11:31, 10 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Relax. They are just maps and can easily be improved, and I am sure that Dab appreciates your feedback.--Wiglaf 11:34, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, these maps can't hope to be perfect, but as soon as we have updated maps, we should replace these ones. See even the article Thrace, where it is said that Celts first moved into Thrace around 279 BC. In any case, there were hardly any notable number of Celts in Thrace in 500 BC. And the Celts moved into Asia Minor after they moved into Thrace. The 500 BC image should be retitled 250 BC for now, though it would still be inaccurate. ---Decius 11:43, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I guess we need a colour for "paleo-Balkans". Ancient Macedonian should not be resolved, the map is far too imprecise for that. Note that not even Indo-Aryan vs. Iranian or Baltic vs. Slavic is resolved, colour-wise. I will try to correct the Latin and Celtic blunders, of course. dab (&#5839;) 06:00, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * One color for the Paleo-Balkan languages is a good idea it seems, since there were so many. Alexandru 06:08, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * the dates are of course not to be taken as exact, of course. I would say it's 500 AD/BC, give or take 200 years. The resolution is grainy on purpose, since it would be impossible to do a map of high resolution without endless disputes. At present, "various/unknown" IE languages are represented as brownish, this includes 'brownish' Macedonia in 500 BC. A agree that the Celts are too expanded in the 500 BC map, Galatia was only Celtic in the 3rd century. The "Latin" streak in 500 AD is supposed to show the linguistic influence of the Roman Empire, stretching to Romania. It is quite impressionistic, I agree, and I would be glad for your suggestions on how to improve it. Keep in mind that the map shows only 'Latin', 'Germanic', 'Slavic', and 'Other'. We should not embark on disambiguating the 'Other', about which hardly anything is known. Also in 500 AD, Armenian emerges from brownish 'Other', I want to make no claim whether it evolved out of Paleo-Balkans stuff, or whether the language is a fully independent branch, and the Armenians just hid away in some nook for all that time. dab (&#5839;) 06:50, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * The 500 AD distribution of Latin in the east will not be able to be represented other than hypothetically, unfortunately. The consensus is that the Romance Dalmatian language and the Proto-Romanian (whether it formed in Dacia or further south in Moesia or Macedonia or other Balkan provinces) developed separately. Dalmatian was apparently (?) in contact with early Western Romance, while Proto-Romanian was not. So Proto-Romanian (my proposal) should be a separate blue patch of Latin spread across Moesia and Dacia (this is one view-point, but enough scholars support it, and I've seen a number of works here in the U.S. assume a Proto-Romanian presence in Dacia at that time, 500 AD). Alexandru 07:21, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm still not sure how to represent Latin in other Balkan areas at that time (archaeology indicates Latinized speakers in parts of Albania and northern Macedonia, etc.). Perhaps a large part of the Balkans will just have to blue (aside from Hellenized areas, Albanians, etc.). Though no one is sure where the Albanians were in 500 AD. Albanians should be shown in some area of the Balkans where there was less Latin and Greek presence, somewhere around east Dalmatia or Northeast Albania or some wilder part of Moesia (?). Alexandru 07:26, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

well, this map is hardly the place to discuss the finer points of comparative Romance philology -- let's just paint the coastlines and the main parts of the Roman Empire 'Latin', with browinsh-'Other' hinterland allowing for all these unknown factors to hide away. I definitely invite you to draw a more detailed map of the time and area (how about a 'history of the Romance languages' map?), and we can then compress that onto this much granier image. dab (&#5839;) 08:54, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Just making most of the Romanic parts of the Balkans blue (including Transylvania, I vote) except for some hinterlands (north of Albania and other places) sounds like the thing to do. One minor point on the 500 BC map: the Venetic language was still spoken in and around Veneto and Istria back then, and I vote that it is given its own color patch (neither Latin or Paleo-Balkan). Alexandru 09:18, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Back to timetable
I did introduce the spasm of maps, but let us get back to the IE timetable.

dab was talking about the timetable of centum/satem. What are the dates?

spasm of maps? It's a quantum leap man, I have been looking for these maps for ages. Now let us use them! regarding Satemization, I have written a brief paper about that, quite some time ago,. It is quite immature, but I do largely stand by its conclusions, and more to the point, it contains a list of literature on the subject. It does not address the timeline, but the nature of the process. The important article is Solta (IF 70, 1965). We must distinguish the underlying phonetical process from its phonological consequences. The phonetical process is very longeval, we are basically looking at competing processes of palatalization vs. labialization, and these tendencies really never went away. the collapse of the velar series of course did happen at some point. My view is that it is methodologically sound to regard early labiovelars as biphonematic. i.e. Anatolian ku is really ku and not simple kw. There are arguments for and against this, but for prehistoric times, these are futile, and we have to resort to Occam's razor. Satem loss of labiovelars is then essentially a Digammaschwund, related to the tendency of delabialization and palatalization. Conversely, Centum development of labiovelars as single phonemes is related to a phonetic predilection for labialization and depalatalization, that also betided the loss of palatals.
 * the assibilation of the palatals and the collapse of labiovelars and velars are causally related, but must not be confused
 * the collapse of velars and palatals must be seen as yet distinct from the above process

so far this was my understanding of the process, so that I may be able to give my opinion of the timeframe. I hinted at 3500-2500 in the article. 3500 would be the earliest nucleus of subphonematic dialectal separation. By 3000, Satemization would be in full swing in the East, spreading West across the Corded Ware Empire. By 2500, the phonetic tendency reaches the Balkans. The Proto-Greeks are affected phonetically, but not phonologically. After 2500, secondary palatalization takes its course among the Indo-Iranians. The tendency remains active after 2000, and anybody showing up in its area is mercilessly Satemized (like the Armenians). The Tocharians are at best marginally affected, which implies that they were isolated early Corded Ware times. The Albanians -- I don't know, if they were lurking in the Balkans from ca. 2000, they never need have been affected. The Anatolians were not affected at all, of course, and probably isolated from before 3500 (but I see no compelling reason why they would need have been isolated before 4000, or even 4500). Privately, I like to indulge in the idea that the Maykop people are the Proto-Anatolians. The Centum people became the Beaker people before the wave could reach them, and pulled their own stunt of losing the palatals.

This is just one possible view, I suppose, and this writeup is not article-worthy for being OR. Making a rough argument in the direction of the relation between phonetics and phonology will be fine, citing the 1965 Solta article. dab (&#5839;) 06:34, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


 * btw, the Armenians are a bit of a problem, in my picture, and unfortunately, I do not have a good knowledge of the language. I would like to believe that they were Satemized between 700 BC and 400 AD. That's more than a millennium, and plenty of time for such changes. And Armenian underwent the weirdest changes. As far as I can tell, there are deep levels of influence from both Greek and Iranian, it is almost like the language had been torn apart and rebuilt from scratch, even more than English, changing random groups to erk, to the untrained ear, Armenian rather sounds like erk-this and erk-that :o) However, if Armenian was a satemized centum language, pure velars would need to be assibilated. I have found two words that contradict this idea, tekem (*tek-) "weave", and ebek (*bheg-) "broke", and possibly one or two others. This suggests that Proto-Armenian was Satemized earlier, and that Armenian cannot be close to Phrygian. It could still be a Paleo-Balkans language that was just reached by the Satem wave around 2000. dab (&#5839;) 08:06, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Armenian offers all sorts of problems. Partly, its because the majority of the literature is either in Armenian or Russian. Then there is the issue of Armenian nationalism, which prefers to see the situation as closely related dialects instead of the reality of several very ancient distinct languages, of which classical (Eastern or Church) Armenian is only one. Its sprachbund with the Caucasian languages has greatly complicated the phonology. The super-colosssal Iranian substratum/adstratum is another complication; it's as if its speakers almost gave up their language for Iranian: certainly, at some point they were likely fully bilingual (this would likely explain what you consider 'forced satamization). And how Armenian got to Armenia is a whole nother issue; obviously, it has something to do with the wreck of the Uratu Empire, and their staging area was likely present-day Tajikistan.--FourthAve 14:59, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
 * PS it's actually a superstratum, and the lexical situation is quite comparable to what happened to Maltese, a Semitic (actually, Arabic-derived) language that has virtually relexified itself with Romance (mainly Italian) words. --FourthAve 15:20, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Herodotus says the Armenians were a Phrygian colony around 600 BC. I would like to believe him, since 200 years lies well within his reliability radius. It's just that it's a Satem language. But with the Iranian superstratum, their Phrygian language may have self-destructed with mass hyper-Satemizations. My two Centum examples may be spurious remnants of the butchered Phrygian. That would have been quite a case study of language contact, what a pity it's lost in time. dab (&#5839;) 15:30, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I have a book on Armenian which claims the Phrygian origin. It even has some good lexical examples to illustrate it. I can give them here if anyone is interested.--Wiglaf 15:32, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
 * you can give them on Armenian language. However, that doesn't prove much, as for every Phrygian example, there will be ten words that "prove" Iranian heritage... dab (&#5839;) 15:43, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh, these connections are more subtile than mere loanwords, but never mind.--Wiglaf 15:46, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Proto-Satem
DBachmann, please do not try to present the only one and the rightest point of view in the teritory where there is no consensus. This is an encyclopaedia, not your private site. And, the view that Satem is a paraphyletic group is not generally accepted. It should be mentioned in an article like this one. I do not remove any of that what has been written till now but I give additional information only. So please, do not revert my addings.

Existing of Proto-Satem is obvious for at least some Indo-Europeists. This idea is also present on the Internet, see. And note that I do not claim that it is the right idea (even that it is my personal view).

Moreover, "According to older views, the "eastern" languages are Satem". Such a view was on top maybe 100 years ago, before Tocharian was discovered. Please do not revert this as well.

--Grzegorj 10:03, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * No need for the hostility, I was just asking for a citation. The mailing list posting you cite is of course not a 'source' but the view expressed seems quite pragmatic. I would much prefer to have you lecture me about publications proposing "Proto-Balto-Slavo-Aryan" than informing me that WP is not my private homepage. dab (&#5839;) 10:47, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * plus, I suppose, Satemization of Armenian is still paraphyletic. Proto-Balto-Slavo-Aryan is already quite a fringy proposal. But I cannot know this of course, since we don't have a reference to this theory. If somebody has suggested Proto-Balto-Slavo-Armeno-Aryan somewhere citeable, we will of course include the idea here. "Existing of Proto-Satem is obvious for at least some Indo-Europeists." is precisely what I would like evidence for. "This idea is also present on the Internet" goes without saying of course.  dab (&#5839;) 10:54, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

So OK, you are right about sources but... I have just got excited that you removed my addings :-). And now, more quietly.

The thesis about proto-Satem is also the simple result of analysis of the content of one of the links to external sources, namely. Notice the following points on the evolutionary timeline, according to the author:


 * 4000 BC - split into Anatolians, Tokharians and the rest; Proto-Celtic-Italic-Illyrians begins to emerge
 * 3000 BC - The Proto-Celts expand west into southern Germany
 * 2500 BC - separation of the Proto-Italics, the Proto-Illyrians, the Proto-Hellenic and the Proto-Germanic.

The question is - who stayed at IE home that time? The answer is: proto-Satem, even if it is not expressed clearly in the article. Instead, we can read: "The remaining main body of Indo-Europeans (..) undergoes the Satem phonetic changes". Printed sources are at the end of the article.

So, I have not quoted my source because it has already been quoted :-)

I would rather not talk about Proto-Balto-Slavo-Aryan because Armenian and Albanian (without reservation) are also Satem. Notice that there are not Satem words in Centum languages, of course except more or less obvious borrowings and secondary development (like in French [sa] '100' which is formally Satem! - and only formally of course). On the contrary, each Satem language contains a number of Centum words which do not seem to be borrowings. See my post in discussion at for examples.

Hence all those talkings about semi-Satem Albanian etc. are no more than myths. Albanian is Satem, however it has many borrowings from Centum languages (mainly from Latin). Besides, the Illyrian problem is open: we do not know for sure whether Albanians are descendants of Illyrians or nor, and we do not know whether Illyrian was really Centum (there are also views that it was Satem). Anyway, Albanian seems to be a Satem language with strong Centum influence.

And I cannot say if Balto-Slavic (or: Baltic and Slavic, according to others) was closer to Indo-Iranian or to extinct languages of southern Europe (Thracian etc.). All those languages (incl. Armenian) share a number of common features. They are not only the development of IE palatovelars into č-, š- or s-like sounds. Another common feature is the Ruki rule, i.e. tendency to changing (original) s into š or x in some positions (x - I mean IPA /x/, not /ks/). There exist numerous lexical similarities but rather in pairs, namely between Baltic and Slavic (obvious for those who claim existing of proto-Balto-Slavic in the past) but also e.g. between Slavic and Albanian (hard to say if between Salvic and Thracian because the latter is rather little known).

Moreover, I think that numerous (!) lexical similarities between Germanic and Balto-Slavic (as analyses show, mainly between Baltic and Germanic, despite of some myths), between Slavic and Italic or between Greek and Armenian should be explained as the result of mutual influences rather than real genetic relation. Proto-Slavs seem to have borrowed tons of words from Goths. We know virtually nothing on the history of the Slavs before 500 AD, and we do not know who inhabited some parts of Central Europe before them - they could also be Italics. Proto-Greeks and proto-Armenians may have been neighbours for centuries somewhere on the Balcan Peninsula, etc. These facts are ignored by those who "prove" that the Germanic and Slavic are very close.

And... is Centum group really paraphyletic? Again, take a look at. Maybe polyphyletic would be more accurate?

--Grzegorj 12:01, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

And a word on Armenian... Adjarian counted 524 Greek-Armienian lexical parallels (incl. 41 lexems not known outside Greek and Armenian), 432 Iranian-Armenian parallels (not borrowings!, incl. 18 exclusively Armenian-Iranian lexems) and also 432 Slavic-Armenian parallels (incl. 27 lexems not known outside). This can be the argument for what I said above: the (all) Satem language unity followed by a period of Armenian-Greek neighbourhood.

--Grzegorj 12:11, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * If the "thesis about Proto-Satem ... is simply the result of the analysis of the content" of that site you linked, there is a big problem: that site was written by a Dutch psychologist, who is not a linguist, as far as I know. He has his own ideas, such as that Wallachia is the Urheimat (possible, but just one out of countless scenarios). Tony Starks 12:22, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * It is not the result of the analysis of one source and I am surprised that you state this way after reading of the source. But Boeree gives his sources. Haven't you noticed? "Following Cyril Babaev's Indo-European Proto-Dialects". And I. M. Diakonov, On the Original Home of the Speakers of Indo-European, Journal of Indo-European Studies (1985, vol. 13, pp 92 to 174) and J. P. Mallory's In Search of the Indo-Europeans (1989). Isn't it enough? Of course, we can begin presenting arguments of various views but... is the matter in it? I have only stated that the thesis that the Satem group was paraphyletic (in fact, polyphyletic) is not the only option. Nothing more. Have I been right or not? Are there scientists who share the contrary point of view? Yes, they are. So, I believe that it should be mentioned in the name of scientific honesty. Anyway, Wikipedia should not suggest that there is only one, generally accepted view in this point. I do not investigate other problems: are they right (even if I believe they are), was "Wallachia" the real homeland (even if I believe it was not) These are my private convictions. This is not a place to present them. But if views on a given problem are not univocal, shouldn't it be reported? And finally, do you think that people talking on Cybalist are serious thinkers? (see the link above on proto-Satem). --Grzegorj 18:38, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * btw, Piotr Gasiorowski (of your mailing list link) used to be an editor here, User:Piotr Gasiorowski, but I don't think he's around Wikipedia anymore, but you could just email him (his polish userpage has his address) and ask what he meant, and if he has some sources to share with us . As I said, he probably didn't expect you to build a case on his use of "Proto-Satem" (his quotes) in that email. dab (&#5839;) 19:13, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Dbachmann, but I needn't search for sources cause I know enough of them. Anyway, I will try and contact Piotr Gąsiorowski and consult with him about more sources if you really need them. AFAIK, he is a professional linguist and he works in Adam Mickiewicz's University in Poznań, Poland. Maybe for you scientific workers are not scholarly enough to place their views on Wikipedia... Sorry, really. Sorry that you appear not to know the literature of the subject except some books whose authors present the problem very narrowly. See Wave theory below. --Grzegorj 20:57, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

.
Ok, first of all you seem to use the 'Satem' term slightly confusingly. See my note above. "Satem" doesn't just mean assibilation, it means collapse of labiovelars and velars, but differentiation of velars and palatovelars.


 * Not so much confusingly. I understand it perfectly. Differentiation of velars and palatovelars - or preserving the differences between them which had existed before. You should know that there are two views in this point. --Grzegorj 20:57, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

French can never be 'formally satem', because it cannot separate palato-velars from pure velars. Regarding the 'phyletic', the term is problematical of course, because it is tied with the tree model. But so are "proto-languages". If you would say that for purposes of the Satem change, the tree model breaks down between Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian, I would agree. But that does not make for "Proto-Satem".


 * It is you who would agree. But others have different views. You do not seem to know about it. --Grzegorj 20:57, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Let's have a look at the corded ware map.



this is the situation relevant to the time of Satemization. What do you mean "at home"? The steppe is big. Surely, over the CW territory, mutual intellegibility was being lost. If the Proto-Balto-Slavs were the eastern part of this, and the various Centum dialects the western part, and your proto-Indo-Iranians just east of the CW area, who stayed "at home"?


 * The problem where the Satem homeland was, and the problem whether Corded-Warers were Satem people or not (or even the problem whether archeologic cultures agree with language areas or not completely) - they exceed the borders of our discussion. I remind you of the problem: do serious authors exist who claim that there existed proto-Satem language. --Grzegorj 20:57, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

If we assume that Intellegibility between Proto-Bsl. and Proto-IIr. was about as good as, say, between Russian and Serbocroat, or between German and Norwegian, would that constitute a Proto-language? I think this is mostly about terminology. By "Proto-Satem" people may mean the ultimate origin of the Sound shift. This is not identical with postulating a tree model for the Satem spread. If you mean to say that "some scholars" postulate a tree-like "Satem-Branch", you would really need to name names.


 * As you wish, see below --Grzegorj 20:57, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

For anything else, "Proto-Satem" is misleading. It would be better to say that Satemization was an areal influence spanning the geographically still relatively close (spread over a couple of 1000km, I suppose) Proto-Bsl. and Proto-Iir. communities, around 3200-2800 BC.


 * What about Armenians, Thracians and Albanians? Forgotten? --Grzegorj 20:57, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Similarly, a sort of "Centumization" took place in the West. This is the process of giving up the palatovelars (fronting them), *while* retaining (and emphasizing) the labiovelars. Tocharian was not part of this, the Tocharians just levelled all rows, without being influenced by anyone, which would mean they had lost (close) contact with late Yamna at around that time, while it doesn't mean that they took part in the "Centumization". dab (&#5839;) 12:27, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Sorry Dbachmann, didn't you agreed with me at the point of proto-Satem before? See Talk:Indo-European_languages: "3400-3000 Centum-Satem break, Western IE, Eastern (or Central) IE" (FourthAve) and "That certainly makes sense, is EIEC-compatible, and it should be easy to reference the details from Kurgan supporters" (Dbachmann). But existing of Proto-Satem is the obvious effect of FourthAve's timeline. Why do you find fault with me and not with him? However, this is unimportant. But you can see, again, that the proto-Satem hypothesis has many followers and itr should be placed here instead of presenting "the only and the right" view of some its antagonists. And what are your sources? And what are names of those who do not agree with Proto-Satem? What are their arguments? I want to know it the same as you want to know who are the followers. So, please tell me. --Grzegorj 20:21, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * what? either you are not getting me, or I am not getting you. Every single "Introduction to IE linguistics" book I know treats the Centum/Satem isogloss as an areal effect. Ideas of "Proto-Satem" belong in the mid-19th century. So, yes, I can find you some 19th century authors who support it, but that would really be your job. "Proto-Satem" means at least Proto-Balto-Slavo-Aryan. Armenian may still be Satemized secondarily, that doesn't  matter. Let's not even begin to talk about Thracian. Albanian is not generally accepted as "Satem" (didn't you read my comment?). So if you find me one 20th century author who unambiguously proposes a Proto-Balto-Slavo-Aryan unity after the breakoff of the later Centum dialects, I will gladly accept to include the reference. You have said "others have different views" a few times too often now. Name one name. I hope you'll at least agree that it is a minority view. If you do not, I can easily dig up a few citations of the mainstream view, but I thought that was undisputed. dab (&#5839;) 05:43, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Really, it does not seem to be the right place for scientific disputes but I just cannot leave this as is. Instead of reading "introductions" please consult your views with really scientific literature, including that one in foreign languages of course. Proto-Satem does not mean Proto-Balto-Slavo-Aryan and I really know nobody who would claim so - I cannot find you one 20th century author who unambiguously proposes a Proto-Balto-Slavo-Aryan unity, because they propose a Proto-Balto-Slavo-Indo-Iranian-Armenian-Albanian-Thracian unity instead. Indeed, there are plenty of people who are convinced that the hypothesis of monophyletic character of all Satem languages is true - see my note below and stop with "name one name" because you have already had 4 (plus 5th, mine), and none of them is a 19th century author. The view that Albanian is Centum is strange for me and I am convinced it has no scientific basis at all. The people who claim so must ignore the fact that Albanian contains numerous Centum borrowings, mainly form Latin, very strongly changed as a rule (like "mik" from "amicus"). The second item they ignore is the fact that there are plenty of Centum words in each Satem language, and I really do not think that Albanian is an exception in any way. Of course all this is only my personal point of view - but you try to force your views all the time. And finally: what do you think saying "Satemized secondarily"??? Sorry, it does not sound scholarly at all. How do you imagine it? As many scholars assume, in the beginning there were 3 velar rows, K' : K : Kw. The first and the second rows merged in Centum languages. And later, in Proto-Armenian, they split again? How? But language changes have no memory. Of course, this hypothesis is not acceptable. The truth was different. Armenian is one of Satem dialects and as such it is really related to Slavic for example. It is a pity that you have not read my comments ("Adjarian counted (...) also 432 Slavic-Armenian parallels (incl. 27 lexems not known outside)."). So, the theory about secondary satemization is a true nonsense. You really lack arguments for it and there are arguments which contradict your theory (Slavic-Armenian lexical similarities, s > š after r (limited Ruki like in Baltic, etc.). --Grzegorj 09:47, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Comments
I really like the way this article has shaped up. There is nothing here I disagree with. An enormous amount of linked information is presented, without making the article too long.

As for satemization, isn't it easier to term it as a sprachbund thing?

We also probably need to think of revising the IE template. I did add the Globular Amphora culture to it, but stopped when I realized how incredibly long it would become (there are IE archaeological culturess I have not gotten to yet).

Tangential to this, I recently did the Rudna Glava article as a complement to the Kura-Araxes culture and Maykop culture articles. This is the 5th millennium Balkan copper mining/smelting culture. I know little of metallurgy, particularly ancient metallurgy, and my exploration of the topic indicates a general wiki-wide weakness in the subject; bronze and bronze age could both use some work. I've also left quite a bit of stuff in Wheel talk, looking towards either an enhanced, or more likely, a separate wheeled vehicle article -- definitely on-topic for IE studies. Comments on all of this would be appreciated. --FourthAve 17:13, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * yes, 'sprachbund' may be a helpful term here. I do not insist on the "paraphyletic" at all. Note though that I am not sure that "sprachbund" is synonymous with "linguistic area" as the article claims. We main need an areal linguistics article or something. dab (&#5839;) 18:04, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Paraphyletic means containing all descendants of a common ancestor but few. And polyphyletic means not having one common ancestor. Terming Satem languages paraphyletic suggests that there existed one proto-Satem language (which was fully Satem already) and that not all its descendants are Satem. But if you termed Satem languages polyphyletic instead, it would suggest that their last common ancestor was not Satem yet, and the process of Satemization took place in several branches independently. I believe it to be a nonsense but the choice is yours. Anyway, the term paraphyletic is confusing. Please change it to make the article consistant with generally accepted terminology. --Grzegorj 20:28, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Wave theory
I have a small question to all the criticizers of Proto-Satem: What can you say about the wave theory by J. Schmidt? Some info abot the author: Johannes Schmidt (linguist). I have no idea where is this theory presented in English. I am not a native English speaker. My first source about proto-Satem, together with the sources I have already cited, is the book: L Bednarczuk (red.): Języki indoeuropejskie. Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. Warszawa. 1986. p. 37 n. Can you speak Polish? If yes, read there. Satis est? So, do not ask me about the sources anymore. Poland is not Mars. And the view that there existed the Proto-Satem language is the official view presented in university books in my country. And, please do not ask me about proofs any more. Do not make Polish scientists idiots. You have asked about names. Please: Leszek Bednarczuk. Is it enough? And do not revert my notes any longer. I repeat: there are serious scientists (you have both printed sources and names) who believe there was Proto-Satem. And you can believe it or not but you have no rights to refuse this from Wikipedia. Here you are innovations in the Proto-Satem language (and, by the way, proofs of its existing): (after L. Bednarczuk, op. cit.).
 * spirantization of palatovelars,
 * a new palatalization of velars before front vowels,
 * back articulation of s in some positions,
 * delabialization of labiovelars,
 * spreading of lengthened degree of ablaut in verbs,
 * spreading of sigmatic aorist with the lengthened ablaut of the root,
 * future with -sio-,

OK. Now is your turn If you think Schmidt was wrong, all right. Tell my why he was as I tell you why he was right. In other words: please give me your sources and your arguments. In yet other words: what are linguistic proofs that the proto-Satem community never existed.

--Grzegorj 20:01, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I think there may be a faux amis at work here. I've never heard of anything like 'proto-satem'. English simply does not use 'proto-' this way. Satem/Centum are areal terms, linguistic elements shared by two or more languages in one geographical region.


 * Please read again what I wrote and you will find proto-Satem on the Internet. And stop using such categorical statements and instructions. Satem/Centum are areal terms in your opinion but it is not the commonly accepted view. Is your statement "Satem/Centum are areal terms" your answer to my question "why was Schmidt wrong"? Sorry but such an answer is rather irritable, isn't it? I would not want to think that it is just your disrespect.


 * There are people who think just like I said. Some of them are professors of linguistics. Some of them are authors of university books. I am sorry that your knowledge is not enough in this point, consult the sources I cite. And, why haven't you signed your post? --Grzegorj 00:19, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Grzegorj, Joh. Schmidt is the guy who did away with Proto-Satem. His wave theory is the alternative to assuming Proto-Satem. After Schmidt, people dropped the concept. If Leszek Bednarczuk postulates proto-Satem, that's fine. But since you seem to think that Schmidt does, I have my doubts if you are not also mis-representing  Bednarczuk's view here. You simply seem to confuse "the first dialect that came up with Satem innovations" (probably either Proto-Bsl, or Proto-IIr), with "Proto-Satem". Maybe this is a genuine confusion, or just an effect of transferring terminology from Polish to English. dab (&#5839;) 05:54, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

"Dalszy rozwój prajęzyka następował zgodnie z teorią falową J. Schmidta, w ten sposób, że od prajęzyka odrywały się stopniowo dialekty peryferyjne, do których nie docierały już kolejne, wychodzące z centrum innowacje." (L. Bednarczuk, op. cit., p. 37). Translation: "Further development of the protolanguage happened in accordance to the wave theory by J. Schmidt, in such a way that peripherial dialects were losing touch with the protolanguage gradually, and succeeding innovations which sprang from the centre, were not reaching them."

And further (p. 39): "W przeciwieństwie do grupy satemowej języki kentumowe ze względu na peryferyjne położenie nigdy nie tworzyły wspólnoty i nie posiadają wspólnych innowacji (..)" which means "contrary to the Satem group, Centum languages have never formed a community because of their peripherial location, and they do not have common innovations".

"Wspólnota" = "community" is the word used for e.g. "Proto-Indo-European language community". It suggests that dialects which formed the community were closely related (and were less or more mutually intelligible) and they wer not just a secondary bunch (sprachbund). It is not a genuine confusion or an effect of bad translating. See also: "Po rozpadzie grupy satemowej wchodzące w jej skład języki pozostawały nadal w bliskich kontaktach w ramach wspólnot cząstkowych, jakimi były: nie budząca wątpliwości wspólnota praindoirańska, dyskusyjna - prabałtosłowiańska oraz możliwa - paleobałkańska." (p. 38). Translation: "After the desintegration of the Satem group the languages which have entered into the composition of it stayed in close contacts within partial communities which were: the Proto-Indo-Iranian community which is beyond a doubt, the Proto-Baltic-Slavic community which is under discussion, and the Paleo-Balcanic community which is possible". The deduction is that terms "ProtoII", "ProtoBS", and "Satem group" are all marked with the same the same word: "community". So, Bednarczuk's opinion, basing on Schmidt, is that the Satem group was more than just a sprachbund - a real language community, just like Proto-Indo-Iranian a little later. Am I right?

--Grzegorj 08:11, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I do think we basically agree, and it is a matter of terminology:
 * Further development of the protolanguage happened in accordance to the wave theory by J. Schmidt, in such a way that peripherial dialects were losing touch with the protolanguage gradually
 * imho this is a misapplication of the term "protolanguage", since, as soon as "peripheral dialects" lose contact, it ceases to be a protolanguage. The view is also "Satem-centric" since it seems to suggest that after the breakup there was a "central" and "peripheral" groups, rather than just Eastern and Western post-PIE dialects. Why were the early Satem dialects "central"? Because Tocharians are assumed further to the East? In any case, Bednarczuk's opinion does not sound so outlandish to me, it's just that his terminology is problematic. We could say something along the lines of:
 * other linguists, such as L. Bednarczuk, view Satemization as a "central" development of the latest stage of the proto-language, which did not reach "peripheral" dialects already separated geographically.
 * it is really a matter of defining "language". pre-Proto-Bsl and pre-Proto-Iir need not have been closer to each other than to the pre-Centum dialects (i.e. all could still have been mutually intellegible), the point is geographical proximity which Bednarczuk describes as "central". "Central" with respect to what (the Samara bend??) is not made clear. dab (&#5839;) 08:37, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Geez, what an obstinate and perverse being :-) sorry, it tends to be just humoristic. But why not, I like such constructive discussion. OK, let's take your version but... why "such as L. Bednarczuk"? It suggests that he is a member of a smal and unimportant minority. I wish it was true (then we would achieve a common view) but it is rather not. I know that it is not a good reason but it is really hard for me to prove that I am not a camel (it's just Polish saying, comprehensible I hope). You know, existance of the view of genetic character of the Satem community and non-marginal character of the view (I mean there is a fair number of writers who share such a view, not just single persons) is so obvious for me as absence of such a view for you, and that is why we are on different positions. You want to know more names and I want to know more names (titles etc.) too. But never mind, I have begun and I should prove my view.

Have a look at | History of the English language: "The first separation that led to variation in Indo-European society is known as the Satem-Centum split" and think what could mean this "first separation" and what should be its results. I'll prompt: one language (or: L-complex, but not just a language league, or sprachbund) split into two languages (or: L-complexes).

Now look at | Proto-Indo-European "A theory popular in previous years was that of a centum-satem initial split" (the problem is that it was not the initial split as it was "Anatolian - the rest" rather). The author, Marisa Lohr, has not stated anyway that the Satem (natural, not secondary) group never existed.

And another example. "According to L. Niederle, two groups of languages, Satem and Kentum, developed from the original Indo-European language. The former consisted of the Pre-Slavonic language and the Pre-Lithuanian language, which preserved their relation with the Old Track language (the Armenian language) and the Indo-Iranian languages." | Some problems of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs by B. Chropovský (notice also sources he refers to).

The statement "Just as is the case with archaeology and genetics, Indo-European linguistics displays a fundamental division between eastern and western Europe. This division is sometimes spoken of as the centum/satem split" also suggests genetic character of the Satem group. | The Paleolithic Indo-Europeans. Although I cannot agree with many deductions in the article, the author refers to archaeology and genetics, so not only to linguistics, in his view on the fundamental character of the Centum/Satem split.

It is the time to remember that we are not discussing whether the hypothesis of natural character of the Satem group is true or not - but whether there are scientists who accept it and how many of them there are. I state that there are many, not only some renegades like Bednarczuk.

And that is why my final proposal is some other linguists view Satemization as a "central" development of the latest stage of the proto-language, which did not reach "peripheral" dialects already separated geographically. Satisfied with such a compromise? :-)

--Grzegorj 10:00, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure you are getting my point. I am saying the three terms are not identical. I have no problem with saying that the Satem/Centum split is "fundamental". It is, however, not necessarily genetic. "Proto-Satem" suggests a genetic nature of the split. "Central" is yet another (geographical?) point. People who say the split is "fundamental" do not necessarily agree that the innovation was "central". So maybe you should make several statements: again, I do not think this is a factual disagreement so much as a terminological debate. dab (&#5839;) 10:21, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * "Proto-Satem"
 * Centum/Satem split
 * "central" innovation
 * The Centum/Satem split is the major early phonological isogloss dividing the Indo-European dialects (excepting Anatolian, Tocharian, and possibly Albanian)
 * Prior to the wave theory of Johannes Schmidt, this split was understood as genetic. Some contemporary scholars continue to argue for a genetic split
 * some other linguists (e.g. L. Bednarczuk) view Satemization as a "central" development of the latest stage of the proto-language, which did not reach "peripheral" dialects already separated geographically


 * OK with the last statements, let it be yours, already inserted in the article to finish the debate :-). But... you are not right with Schmidt, unfortunately. See below. Grzegorj 11:22, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Was Schmidt the guy who did away with Proto-Satem?
In 1928 Trubetzkoy proposed the term "Sprachbund" (I prefer the translated version: language league). However, the term gained acceptation only after 1936, i.e. after publication of R. Jacobson's "Sur la théorie des affinités phonologiques entre les languages".

J. Schmidt died in 1901 so no way he can have thought about language leagues. He voted for, not against, the natural (genetic) Satem group. Namely, he criticized Schleicher's "Stammbaumtheorie" in some points. This is what he claimed:


 * 1) Related languages have developed from a common trunk but they did not become isolated at once, just after the split. Contrarily, they influence each other as long as they touch each other geographically (as long as they are neighbours) and until strong language boundaries come into being.
 * 2) Splitting of the Indo-European protolanguage did not happen immediately but it was preceded with a period of dialectal differentiation. The fact was illustrated by J. Schmidt with the Centum-Satem isoglose (so, he did vote for the natural character of these groups!) and with the -m-/-bh- isoglose (I mean the phoneme which is present in some casual endings).
 * 3) The IE protolanguage, as well as separate PIE words, cannot be treated as real beings but rather as hypothyetical, relative reconstructions which demonstrate the contemporary knowledge.
 * 4) Language changes spread concentrically like waves in water when we drop stones in it. Of course, such a spreading is possible as long as neighbour dialects are still enough similar.

So, no voting against the natural character of the Satem group. And about the above text, would it be a good stub for wave-theory (not written yet)?

Ooops, sources... :-) A. Heinz: Dzieje językoznawstwa w zarysie. PWN. Warszawa 1983. pp. 172 (Schmidt) and 294 (language league). --Grzegorj 11:05, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

agree, except for your point 4b, "Of course, such a spreading is [only] possible as long as neighbour dialects are still similar enough". this is not at all a requirement for phonological changes. Also, what is meant by "natural"? The same as "genetic"? Is a wave phenomenon somehow "unnatural"? This is no 'vote against the natural character' of the satem group (not "branch"), but "Language changes spread concentrically like waves in water when we drop stones in it." is certainly opposed to the stammbaummodell tied up with genetic "Proto-Satem". I don't think your ideas are wrong, but your terminology is seriously lopsided. Centum/Satem is an "isogloss", evidently. How is that tied up with "natural" or even "genetic"? You hear somebody say "isogloss" and you go "aha! natural! therefore genetic!"? your terminology seriously breaks down at this point. crossing isoglosses (such as the centum/satem and the bh/m ones) prove that both cannot be genetic. Either one, or both, must be due to waves/contact (which are perfectly "natural" processes) dab (&#5839;) 11:35, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

No "Natural" means of course the same as "genetic". A natural group of ethnolects (ethnolect = a dialect or a language) means the same as "monophyletic" in biology. "Isogloss" and "natural" do not cause any breaking, I canot understand you at all. You think like Schleicher, not like Schmidt. An isogloss separates some dialects of the same language from other its dialects. If there are, say, 20 dialects, there are many crossing isoglosses possible. Despite it, these dialects are still genetically related.

You imagine that isoglosses can separate languages which are brought nearer secondarily. Even if it is so, Schmidt cannot have known it. In his times nobody thoght about language leagues. He had in mind only isoglosses between separate dialects which are descendants of one common ancestor. Before Schmidt's time it was thought that daughter languages lose contacts after splittting. Schmidt claimed that it is not true: even long after breaking the language community, the daughter dialects can influence each other. Of course, as long as they are mutually intelligible. No intelligibility = two different languages, in this case no waves can break through. In other words, according to Schmidt, during the process of Satemization, the dialects which were subject of the process were still dialects of one language. --Grzegorj 10:09, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

not at all. I imagine that isoglosses move, across already separated dialects. Precisely how Schmidt has described it. The second Germanic sound shift is a prime example. It started as an innovation in Northern Italy, in the 6th century, I guess, and over the following 500 years, the isogloss moved north until central Germany, by contact, without much migration. I decidedly object to your "of course, no intelligibility = two different languages, in this case no waves can break through." that's not obvious at all, rather there are examples to the contrary. Loan syntax borrowed from English is most active in German, for example. These processes are fuelled by bilinguals (who need not be a large fraction of the population, they just need some influence). I also object to your "'Natural' means of course the same as 'genetic'". You do seem perfectly informed about the topic, but you have some difficulty in separating your own "perfectly obvious" conclusions from what people actually claim. Of course dialects with crossing isoglosses can still be related. What are you talking about? Nobody disputes the existence of the IE family. The point is that the innovations cannot have spread genetically in case of crossing isoglosses, i.e. there cannot be a "proto-Satem" dialect and a "Proto-bh-Dative" dialect, these innovations have spread via Schmidt's waves (which are perfectly "natural")dab (&#5839;) 10:32, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Dab, but we are talking about Schmidt and not about what people actually claim today, and especially not about what you imagine. Haven't you noticed it? In Schmidt's time the conception of language leagues was not even in plans. And - the most important - it is you who seem to have difficulties. Really, it's the time for you to admit that you do not know everything. Just think: the most prominent Polish linguists treat the idea of Proto-Satem very seriously and claim that it is based on Schmidt's wave theory. You have heard of it never before, and you negate their opinion. Instead, you claim that everybody think that Satemization was a secondary process. Ha, you have even tried to argue me into the believe that I cannot translate the Polish text correctly - all this so as to appear that it is you who is right.

I hope that everyone who reads our discussion has already noticed it all. So, instead of keeping saying "people actually claim", "they cannot" and "I imagine", cite the sources as well, please, like I do. As I said, Schmidt had only genetically related dialects in mind when he spoke about his waves. I have cited the source of my not-so-revelatory revelations. Now it's the time for you, cite your sources. Feel free not to limit yourself to one IE encyclopedia please. And keep in mind what is the actual question. I'm reminding it: "what did Schmidt think". It is not important at all what _you_ imagine (WP:NPOV) and it is not important what people actually claim nowadays. "The easiest way to make your writing more encyclopedic is to write about what people believe, rather than what is so" WP:NPOV. So, please stop with this "in my opinion" as you are not "people". In our example, I have proved that there are experts in IE who do believe that the Proto-Satem language community did exist, and that they do believe that their view is based on Schmidt's wave theory. I have presented you quotations that are not disputable at all. It means the end of the quarrel. It appeared that you had not known all popular views and that it had seemed to you that all linguists think the same. Now you know that you were wrong, I hope.

Now about the essence of the matter. You are right that isoglosses move across separated dialects but as a rule they move across similar and mutually comprehensible dialects (with some exceptions which were not known in Schmidt's time however). Your High German (HG) example proves it as well. The 2nd consonantal shift enveloped some German dialects that had already been separated but still similar enough. If it had been contrarily, it would have enveloped neighbouring Italian or Slavic dialects as well.

You can object to my "of course, no intelligibility = two different languages, in this case no waves can break through" if you really want - but it (what I said) was obvious in Schmidt's time, and your example no way contradicts it. Please read my text more carefully. I realize that my English is not perfect but still I daresay it is comprehensible. So, if you think that Schmidt could have had in mind something else than closely related dialects, do prove that people thought about language leagues at that time.

As for now, it appears that the idea of Proto-Satem does not contradict the wave theory. Which is more, the idea is actually based on Schmidt's concept. But the HG example refers to strictly related dialects only. By analogy, the Centum/Satem isogloss should have referred to strictly related dialects. It gives the basis for claiming that the Proto-Satem language community really existed. Only such a deduction can be termed being in full concordance with the wave theory. This is fully accepted by many prominent linguists, including the authors of the book I cited.

It is a really separate question whether these points of view are "true" or "false". You claim they are incorrect, and I claim that they are correct. This is all we can do.

--Grzegorj 20:37, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Areal linguistics
Some of the terms to be defined are
 * superstratum
 * adstratum
 * substratum
 * sprachbund
 * bilingualism
 * language replacement

The Satem languages were essentially a sprachbund, which is a "speech federation", where two or more languages develop a common phonology, as with the case with English, French, German and Dutch (contrast with the phonemes you get in the Slavic sprachbund). It is a phenomenon of bilingualism, when you have enough bilingual people to start mutually influencing each others phonology, particularly in elite dominance situations.

An adstratum is a language living cheek-to-cheek with another, where one or both exchange lexical items, and sometimes, phonology. Puerto Rican Spanish in New York City has an enormous English adstratum, and produces a distinct 'New York accent' when these speakers speak in Spanish (in comparison to the 'pure' Puerto Rican accent you get on the island). This is a kind of sprachbund. Full bilingualism is not necessarily obligatory, but the elite speakers will be bilingual, and their example will be followed. I imagine Polish speakers born and raised in the Greenpoint district (New York City's Petit Polonia) have a New York accent too.

A superstratum is an imposed lexical (and sometimes, grammatical) element, as with the case of English and Norman French after 1066, or what happened to French after the Franks (Charlemagne et al.) got finished working over their early Romance language.

A substratum is largely found in the context of language replacement. A substrate is quite evident in most non-native speakers of a language, whatever that language may be; it brings an accent into play, and depending on the speech community, lots and lots of words from the native language are brought along into the new language. Referring to New York City English once again, a number of non-English terms were introduced this way into English, and then passed into the native-speakers inventory: Yiddish words such as schlep or chutzpah; Italian words such as pizza and capeesh; more anciently, even Dutch words such as 'stoop' for 'outside stairs'. Substrata are an underappreciated source of borrowings. --FourthAve 23:35, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * OK. I hope that these explanation are not for me... you know... :-) I do not need them, really. But who said that the Satem languages were only a sprachbund? Is it your private theory? And what is the evidence that they are not related? (I.e. more related than their relations to other IE languages) --Grzegorj 01:33, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Paraphyletic
I am very curious who said that Centum and / or Satem are paraphyletic. It does not fit to the definition of this term at all. So, please give the sources. I have looked for this term on the Net and found nothing but this Wiki article and its copies. --Grzegorj 00:38, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * it is a biological term that is not commonly used in linguistics. It does, however, say in one word what linguists usually take a sentence or two to say. It does imply a tree model, and means that if we look at the tree, Satemization takes place across several branches. It is quite simple: assuming a tree,
 * "monophyletic" equals "Proto-Satem",
 * "paraphyletic" (in fact, the better term would be "polyphyletic") equals "no Proto-Satem"
 * As I said above, I do not insist on the term, and will happily accept an educated rephrasing in terms of diffusion/spachbund/areal linguistics. dab (&#5839;) 05:36, 15 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, I think Grzegorj is right here - the correct term is clearly "polyphyletic." There actually could be a Proto-Satem if Satem is paraphyletic, just as there are proto-reptiles in spite of the fact that the birds make reptiles a paraphyletic group. john k 05:49, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * fair's fair. "polyphyletic" is the better term here. In biology, this would mean independent innovation (since there is no "areal biology"), which is not adequate to linguistics. I agree the term should be dropped, and we should rephrase things using proper linguistic terminology. dab (&#5839;) 05:57, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Once again, the author of the "paraphyletic revelation" is asked to cite his/her source. It is so because I am not sure what the original author had in mind. But if the Satem languages were "paraphyletic", it would mean that the Satemization took place only once, in one language/dialect, and not all descendants of that Proto-Satem language are still Satem today. Because we discussed on the idea of Proto-Satem, such a citation could shatter my doubts. At the same time I hope that the term "paraphyletic" is not just a fantasy of a Wikipedist. It is not a right place for presenting personal imaginations, so I demand the quotation from the source. --Grzegorj 09:58, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Decem and Taihun
Would it be useful to mention (or at least give links to not written yet articles on) another division of IE languages, namely the Taihun-Decem division? The idea comes from the authors of the Glottalic theory, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov. They claim that Germanic and Armenian has the consonantal system preserved best when compared to the protolanguage state. See my comment in another place for details.

Anyway, I do not like the Decem / Taihun idea. I do not like the Renfrew's hypothesis either. The Renfrew idea should be mentioned here for preserving the neutral point of view and it _is_ mentioned. So, perhaps the Gamkrelidze-Ivanov's theory should be mentioned as well? Even if in the form of links to other articles? What is you opinion?

--Grzegorj 13:38, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

we can certainly link to glottalic theory from here. Although details should go there and on PIE, I suppose. dab (&#5839;) 16:01, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, and that's why I have only added the information on Armenia as the cradle of IE-ans as it is according to Gamkrelidze and Ivanov. In order to prevent my adding from deletion: it is based on Internet sources like the added link and on books like W. Mańczak (1999) Wieża Babel. Ossolineum. Wrocław - Warszawa - Kraków. --Grzegorj 09:48, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

"Balto-Slavic" never existed
Baltic languages and Slavic languages are completely separate languages' groups. Slavs emerged in second half of 1st millenium BC in area of Lower Dniepr in long process of mixing of southern Baltic tribes with migrated Asiatic tribes. It is the same like modern French emerged from Celts in process of mixing (see discussion above). But something like "Celtic-French" doesn't exist. Nonexisting "Balto-Slavic" emerged in XIX - 1st half of XXth centuries as product of Russian and Polish propaganda. Benjamin07 15:06, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Hmm...Could Benjamin07 be Zivinbudas? Odd that old Ben here would be making exactly the same bizarre, ignorant claims that Zivinbudas made a few months ago, huh? john k 15:25, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

You, Johny-Hujohny, I see are the same schizophrenic pimpled teen from Shitypedia slum? Benjamin07 15:40, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

wow, Zivibundias, you did read up some details, didn't you? late 1st millennium, Lower Dniepr you say. The Slavs are a mixture of pure Balts and yellow Asians. Wow, it's like you had been there! Now add a citation to that and we can include the opinion. Of course if you continue to insult people like that you'll just be blocked again. Oh wait, you're still banned, aren't you? Cite your source, quickly, before your account is locked down again. dab (&#5839;) 15:59, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Dear Benjamin07 or whoever you are. It is written (and it is fully correct) that there are scientists who do not use the term "Balto-Slavic" - btw. for various reason. At the same time, most agree with this term, don't they? Of course, if Slavic languages really formed the way you described, you can be right that the term Balto-Slavic _could_ be considered to be improper. But here it is not important who is right and who is wrong - the fact is that the term "Balto-Slavic" is in common use and it is noticed here. Are you unhappy because Wikipedists write true - that most scientists like that term? This is Wikipedia and not a private forum. And the aim we all are here is to present human knowledge and not to judge such or another view. For me, it is obvious that, for example, Renfrew tells lies. But it is my personal point of view and if I wrote about theories of IE homeland (fortunately I need not because it has already been done), I would describe his theory as well (even if I hate it with all my heart like you hate Balto-Slavic). And, I have a private webpage where I criticize lord Renfrew and his ideas. This is the proper place for it, not Wikipedia. So please, begin doing anything useful and helping others instead of repeating all the same all the time. I am sure there are articles you can edit without making controversy. --Grzegorj 16:31, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

For me isn't important any "opinion" of Pole (or any Slav). Sorry for that. Woody08 16:44, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

why do you "hate Balto-Slavic"? It's just a hypothesis about how CW or whatever morphed into Baltic and Slavic. Sure, it's speculative, but it happens to be the mainstream opinion. See Balto-Slavic. You are preaching to, however. For details about that particular user, see here. He has no business to be here anyway, since he was officially banned for a year for the kind of behaviour you have just witnessed :) dab (&#5839;) 16:42, 15 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh, Dab... I did not write I hate Balto-Slavic, I wrote (to our ill-mannered friend): "even if I hate it with all my heart like you hate Balto-Slavic" :-) I have not preached to him, I have just tried to be kind, and here is my wage for that... not important of course. Of course I give my whole-hearted support to the idea of Balto-Slavic. You are right, it is the mainstream opinion and I can see many pieces of evidence for it (and - to be sincere - together with odd lack of common Balto-Slavic vocabulary in some semantic areas). Grzegorj 23:00, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I see :) you would have had to pick the conditional mood, saying "Even if I hated", otherwise you will say that you actually do hate. dab (&#5839;) 10:20, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Even if cannot express an actual activity at all. The 2nd conditional clause (if -ed --> would) expresses an irreal (but still possible) condition while the 1st one (if -s --> will) expresses a real (or: open) condition. Condition, not an actual act. BTW, if I hated is not in the conditional mood but in the subjunctive mood of the past tense rather (cf. I would hate which is in the conditional mood, or in the future tense in the past, like they also term it). Sorry, you usually estimate the level of my knowledge (or my choise of terminology), and now I should probably say a word on you, too. But... aren't you affraid that an admin (hehe) will ban us in a while because this topic has nothing to do with both IE languages or "Balto-Slavic"?. You are welcome to write me a nice piece of e-mail rather, if you want to continue, OK :-)? --Grzegorj 18:23, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Zivinbudas/Benjamin's incredibly ignorance of, apparently, everything about the entire field of historical linguistics makes him completely useless as a contributor to anything relating to the field. He objects to the term "Balto-Slavic languages" but apparently has no understanding what this term is used to mean, or the way that linguists go about defining a language family. I suggest he be ignored. john k 21:32, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * it's not just his ignorance. His ill manners would make him unbearable even if he did have a clue dab (&#5839;) 10:20, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I respectfully disagree. Even if he were reasonably polite, his complete ignorance of the subject matter would be enough to disqualify him from real participation in the subject.  I would suggest, though that it is hard to imagine someone with good manners vehemently intervening in a subject matter which they simply have no understanding of. john k 17:01, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
 * you are probably right, and I basically say so myself in my "CITE is more important than NPA" maxim. With Z, we are in the comfortable situation that he is banned now, and every time he passes by to call us names resets his ban to a full year -- so that after initially wasting some of people's time, he is now no problem at all, but rather some kind of bizarre spectacle :) dab (&#5839;) 18:01, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Albanian
Who claimed that Albanian may not be Satem? The Satem shift applies inconsistently in Balto-Slavic, in Armenian, and even in Indo-Iranian, so which is the reason for doubts on Albanian? And, which is the most important, where "the Albanian hesitation" is expressed, and how many writers share this hesitancy? AFAIK the opinion that Albanian is Satem is prevailing, and to be true I should say that I cannot remember a book whose author would claim that Albanian is either Centum or undefined. So, if there even exists such a view somewhere, it seems to me to be so marginal that not worth to be mentioned. --Grzegorj 10:35, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

South Africa in map
Does South Africa really have a majority of I-E speakers? The World Factbook gives only about 22% for English+Afrikaans. Ethnologues gives about 9 million out of 42 million. It seems fairly clear that South Africa has a Bantu-speaking majority. On the other hand, it seems wrong to count a country like South Africa, with a very significant minority which speaks Indo-European languages as a first language, as the same as a country like, say, Nigeria, where English is strictly a second language. john k 05:29, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Paraphyletic Satem once again
First, a word on the terms "monophyletic", "paraphyletic" and "polyphyletic". As far as I know, there is only one, generally accepted use of these terms. Namely when we have a group of objects which have a common feature, we term this group:
 * 1) monophyletic - when all the objects have one common ancestor and there are not other descendants of this ancestor,
 * 2) paraphyletic - when all the objects have one common ancestor and there are other descendants of this ancestor,
 * 3) polyphyletic - when the objects have not one common ancestor with the common feature.

So, my first remark is that the statement "the Centum-Satem dichotomy is considered paraphyletic" (in the article) is out of sense. Which is more, the dichotomy cannot be polyphyletic as well. A group can be mono-, para- or polyphyletic - but a dichotomy cannot. If your view is different, please give the source and make the statement consistant with Paraphyly and Polyphyly.

And the second remark: once again about the Satem and Centum groups.

1. I have already written about L. Bednarczuk's view. I repeat that he claims that Satem languages had formed a community while Centum languages had never formed a community. The same word "community" is used for "Proto-Indo-European", so we can speak that once there existed the Proto-Satem language. As a consequence, the Satem group is monophyletic according to him.

2. Leszek Moszyński (Wstęp do filologii słowiańskiej. PWN. Warszawa 1984) writes (p. 180): "Panuje przekonanie, że języki kentumowe wcześniej niż satemowe opuściły praojczyznę indoeuropejską i że dopiero po ich odejściu nastąpiło uprzednienie palatalnych *k', *g'. Dlatego też języki kentumowe nazywane bywają również peryferyjnymi, satemowe - centralnymi". Translation: "The conviction prevails that Centum languages left the Indo-European homeland before Satem languages, and that only after their leaving the fronting of the palatals *k', *g' took place. Hence Centum languages happen to be termed peripheral while Satem ones - central". Anyway, L. Moszyński presents the view that Satemization occured once, not within a language league but within a group of related dialects. The dialects had not become similar secondarily but they had preserved their original similarities rather. So, the L. Moszyński's view is the Satem languages form a monophyletic group.

3. Piotr Gąsiorowski answered my letter and wrote: "Co do pytania głównego, czyli monofiletycznego charakteru grupy satemowej, to -- na razie krótko mówiąc -- istotnie uważam tę hipotezę za bardzo prawdopodobną" which means "As regards to the main question, in other words the monophyletic nature of the Satem group, shortly speaking for now, I consider this hypothesis very probable, indeed."

4. The view that both Satem and Centum languages form monophyletic groups is fully consistant with the map of Sintashta/Abashevo/Srubna cultures (which is added to the chapter "Satem and Centum languages").

The result: L. Bednarczuk is not the only linguist who consider the Satem group monophyletic and the Centum group paraphyletic. I do not claim that this is the only view but no one can say that this view is weird, unpopular, or little spread. And, as the result, the term "Proto-Satem" is not misleading in any way. It would not be better at all to say that Satemization was an areal influence - because many scholars consider it was not only such an influence. In addition, Satemization did not span the Proto-Balto-Slavic and Proto-Indo-Iranian communities. Firstly, as the cited sources show, many scholars consider Satemization to happen before the division into Proto-Balto-Slavic and Proto-Indo-Iranian. Secondly, I do not know virtually any authors who claim that Satemization spanned only PBS and PII. It is generally accepted that Albanian, Armenian and Thracian groups are also Satem. Even if there are people who claim Albanian not to be Satem, they are in minority. So, I am about to insert some more correction to the article in order to make it more consistant with the literature.

If anyone thinks that I am wrong doing this, give your sources, not convictions please.

--Grzegorj 17:51, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

please, let's not walk in circles. I have told you about four times now that I'm fine with your removing the para/polyphyletic stuff, so feel free to do it. re Proto-Satem "and that only after their leaving the fronting of the palatals *k', *g' took place." is a statement opposing Proto-Satem! You may cite Piotr Gąsiorowski as an advocate of Proto-Satem, if you like, or ask him for printed references. Your statement re Sintashta/Abashevo/Srubna shows that you are still confusing linguistic waves (Wellentheorie) with genetic relationship. Re Albanian, I have never said it was Centum. I said it is neither Centum nor Satem, why is this so difficult to understand? I will not go through the exact definition of "Satem" again, let it suffice to say that far from marginal, the view was forwarded by Pedersen (1900), accepted by Karl Brugmann (1911), and confirmed by Jokl (1963), see the literature section of this writeup for the full references. Re "Proto-Satem", if we can agree that "within a language league" vs. "within a group of related dialects" is really a very fluid distinction, we have gained much. Of course I agree that the geographical spread of Satemization happened over "a group of related dialects", but that doesn't mean I refer to that process as "Proto-Satem". dab (&#5839;) 14:54, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

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