On Reality or Not of PIE - and is it "Conspiracy" or "Peer Pressure" in English? (quora)

Q

How do we know that a Proto-Indo-European language really existed? What is the evidence?
https://www.quora.com/How-do-we-know-that-a-Proto-Indo-European-language-really-existed-What-is-the-evidence/answer/Oscar-Tay-1

Oscar Tay

speaks a language

Answered Mon

Upvoted by Joe Devney, Master's in Linguistics, professional writer.

and Eric Meinhardt, PhD student in linguistics

[His answer is longer than the debate I contribute to, so read it yourself, I am not copying it here. It is excellent except for the conclusion and the kind of oversight on Sprachbund possibility I am outlining in the debate, I used to believe this, and I am not contesting the cognates, just whether they all come from one and same language.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

“The “borrowing” idea couldn't explain this – Europe hadn't had contact with India great enough or for long enough to account for all the similarities between Sanskrit and the Classical European languages.”

A French scholar - who then took it back - claimed to have found evidence Linear A on Crete involved some kind of Proto-Aryan language.

Seeing that Hittite and Mycenean Greek as well as Lykian, Lydian and Phrygian are next neighbours …

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

“French and Spanish are related because they both come from Latin. Hindi and Marathi are related because they both from from Sanskrit. Maybe, just maybe, there was a similarity between Latin and Sanskrit (and Greek) that extended beyond their roles on their respective continents.”

And Modern Greek and Romanian share traits because they are both on the Balkan … maybe, just maybe … do I need to spell it out? … Aryan and some more core IE langs coexisted around Aegean, and William Jones was unaware of it.

Oscar Tay

Mon

The Balkan languages share those traits because they’re part of a sprachbund, which is definitely something to take into consideration when comparing languages.

Sanskrit and Latin had very little connection, though, so they’re very surely not members of a sprachbund.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

If Sanskrit as suggested had remote origins on Crete and Latin was somewhere North Balkans or Alps previous to getting down, and Mycenean Greek and Proto-Balto-Slavic between them, a Sprachbund becomes more feasible.

[continued on my last answer]

Oscar Tay

Mon

That seems somewhat unlikely.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

Which part of it?

If a French linguist first came out with Linear A Cretan decoded as proto-Aryan, then retacted without explanation, perhaps there is something to it, and an interest in keeping PIE theory on status quo interfering with his discovery.

[or perhaps this is continued on my last answer]

Oscar Tay

Mon

The undeciphered Cretan systems have about as many solutions as the Voynich manuscript. This particular one is certainly possible, but so are most of the others.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

Have you any example of another solution?

Online, preferrably?

Oscar Tay

Mon

What I meant was that I’m very suspicious of any decipherments of Linear A. If one person came up with a possible solution and then retracted it, it’s more likely that they realized they were wrong than anything conspiratorial.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

You are suspicious, OK, but if someone realised he was wrong, the normal way of marking this would be to make a retraction, rather than take away material already published.

In other words, you do not have other solutions offered on this, you made a kind of general guess.

And your suspicion is “conspiracy” if you like enough for certain sensitive souls to retract even honest and good work, if it is not flawless, or sometimes even if it is : not you as an individual, but you plus the guys you share it with.

Oscar Tay

Mon

I don’t think we’re going to reach an agreement on this, sorry.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

I wasn’t going for agreement, I was going for where your argument leads.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

[continued from above, as said, not quite sure which one]

Mon

Or, Italic (with Latin) staying North of Appenine Peninsula for a while before going down - standard.

Or Proto-Balto-Slavic starting a bit North of Greek? Well, Macedonian (Bilippos!) is at least one of the NIE (North Indo-European) languages. The Balto-Slavic for head fits Macedonian for kephalé with a metathesis.

• Common Greek Kephalé
• Dorian kaphala
• Macedonian gabala
• Balto-Slavic, oldest form attested, Lithuanian galva.

All (as far as known) accented on last syllable.