So, What's New in the Field of Historical/Comparative Linguistics ?

[septimus]

This is not a debate for GQ. I won’t start a GD thread — there might be only one participant — but if someone else does I will join.

OTOH, this discussion has become frustrating. Since this will be my last post in this thread, let me speak bluntly.

@rat_avatar

The Scientific method doesn’t require a point by point refutation of all claims of a hypothesis if a core claim is demonstrated to be false.

Please point to any sentence I have written in this thread that has been “demonstrated to be false.” My sentence; not that of someone else whose views you are conflating with mine.

I clicked on your latest link and was immediately dissuaded from further bother for two reasons:

(1) The paper immediately postulates PIE dates incompatible with a typical Gimbutas model. (And then concludes that the Gimbutas model is false? Whippee!!) They even cite the Atkinson-Gray chronology. FWIW, I exchanged e-mail with Quentin Atkinson over a decade ago; explained a fundamental flaw in their algorithm*; and he made a major admission about relative plausibility.

(* - with (A (B C)) appearing in 51% of simulations, and ((A B) C) in 49%, zero would be a good estimate for the distance A-BC, but Gray-Atkinson compute the A-BC distance by averaging only over the (A (B C)) cases.)

I recommended Ringe’s superior dating in a recent thread, and one SDMB linguist thought even they weren’t recent enough.

@septimus

… I think Ringe’s team is about as credible as any. On page 29 of this slide-show Italo-Celtic is shown splitting off at 3200 BC; Italic and Celtic separate from each other about 2600 BC…

(2) Again, that paper you cite focuses on genetic evidence. I don’t know where you get the idea that a Gimbutas model requires huge migrations (although it happens there was much gene flow); it wasn’t from me:

@septimus

Twenty or thirty years ago the P-I-E Homeland was controversial, but careful consideration of the conjunction of linguistic and archaeological evidence provided overwhelming support for the Gimbutas “Kurgan” hypothesis, and, among reasonable people who study the evidence, I think there are fewer and fewer hold-outs against it. The evidence fits like a hand fits a glove; and nothing in OP’s linked article challenges this. Any remaining doubts should have been dispelled by recent DNA evidence which demonstrates that, for example, the rapid Bell Beaker expansion had its source in an elite migration from the steppes.

The “overwhelming support” was there without considering genetic evidence. DNA is just further corroboration.

@rat_avatar

… the simple fact that the Corded Ware package and the Yamnaya packages are from different origins disproves the existence of the people she dubbed the “Kurgans”

Can you explain this? Affinities between Corded Ware and Yamnaya may be weak, but how do you posit Corded Ware’s origin? Spontaneous Generation?