Doug Weller skreiv:
What's the story about this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_Continuity_Theory
Is it just a fringe idea, or?
Yes.
I'm no specialist, so you'd better wait for an other answer, but this is
what I see:
- He uses genetic continuity to prove linguistic continuity.
- The linguistic evidence is pure speculation with little or no
correlation with reality. Or, as paraphrased in the article, "alleged
consequences of innate grammaticality according to Noam Chomsky's
principles of generative grammar, which Alinei claims defines
conservation as the law of language and languages, and change as the
cline of grammaticality provoked by major external factors such as
language contacts and hybridization, as well as ecological,
socio-economic and cultural events.".
- His position on Germanic (as recounted in the article) -- "Scandinavia
was colonized by Germanic groups "only" after deglaciation and could
preserve its original character more in isolation, as contrasted by the
rich dialect picture of Germany that suffered fragmentation by the
Neolithic appearance of the Linear Pottery culture" -- is at odds with
placename evidence and recorded language diversity. The same goes for
Italic and Slavic.
- The type of wide and rapid language dispersal to populated areas that
he denies (or at least wants to see as a rare exception) is known from
the history of Arabic and Turkic, from Iberian in America and perhaps
Chinese languages to Southern China. Before recorded history, but still
fairly recently, it happened with Malayic (and possibly several other
waves of Austronesian languages) in the Indonesian archipelago and with
Bantu languages through Central and Eastern Africa. Given the relative
ease of communications in the area, it would be strange if something
similar hadn't hit Europe at least once since the Paleolithic.
