Talk:Paleolithic Continuity Theory

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I have edited this page of all crap wich have bias in decision makings.It is about theory and it is equal with the oponent theories.If someone want to point critics on the theory that must be made in seperate column-like rest of the articles on Wikipedia.I wish to notice that space used for and against theory must be equal. Edited by Admin. from "Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia".

[edit] Pseudo-science or no science

What if the paradigm of a not-so-early common origin of the Indo-European languages is met with serious inconsistencies, some of which are shown, for example, by Colin Renfrew in his book on the puzzle of Indo-European origins? Are we left with the choice of not trying any research at all or of resorting to pseudoscience? The proposal of the PCT that the dialect boundaries of today Europe go back to Mesolithic times at least might eventually turn out to be wrong, but is argued with the linguistic and archeological competence of an expert of European dialects and of an expert of European prehistory. Guparra 20:37, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

This article is self-contradictory. First it says PCT is the theory that Indo-European languages have been in place since Paleolithic. Then to contradict the theory in the last paragraph there is a statement that goes something like since language changes are now known not to be due to migrations, PCT must be pseudoscientific. Balazs 20:14, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

you misunderstand. The article is making the point that language spread is not connected to noticeable genetic shifts (i.e. 5% of people may migrate, and cause a change in the language of the other 95%), therefore the argument of the 80% genetic consistency is worthless. They may argue with expert competence on European dialects, but if you ask me, if they apply that competence to the Paleolithic, the outcome is still pseudoscientific. dab (ᛏ) 20:56, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

People have to get used to the new theory. Alinei is not some pseudoscientist to make such elementary faults. PCT is VERY VERY deep theory.

Cheers

I wish to point out some facts on the article, that make me believe that the article should be rewritten.
  1. Alinei's theory is not based on arcaeogenetical studies, much less on those of Brian Sykes, who is not even quoted in the two volumes of "Origini delle lingue d'Europa"

It is based on other, linguistic and archaeological points, which I try to resume.

  • From internal evidence from the European languages and dialects that shows inconsistencies in the usually assumed opinion dialects are late, Middle Age, phenomena.
  • From evidence that linguistic chnge is rather due to contact than to an internal mutation clock: for example, the differences between American English or Spanish and their European counterparts are to be asciribed to the languages spoken in the regions where most emigrants came from rather than to later evolution.
  • From the well known fact that geographically and culturally isolated isolated languages are conservative.
  • From these, and many other facts, Alinei formulates a principle whereby languages change only if compelled to do so, because of contacts, but in absence of contacts they tend to be stable.
  • So the distribution of languages can be much older than believed.
  • Internal evidence shows that the common core of Indo-European language shows an Upper Paleolithic culture. Words that belong to later cultural ages are innovations coined out of a common stock, but innovations nevertheless. Therefore, common Indo-European is much older than believed.
  • The borders of Mesolithic cultures are more or less well reproduced by the borders of modern European dialects.
  • Genetics. The results of Cavalli Sforza and collaborators, of Sokal and others (not of Sykes) show that linguistic borders grossly correspond to "genetic borders". They are of course taken into account, as evidence to be added to the linguistic and archaeological evidence. But the PCT does not relay upon genetics.
  1. If a theory about the origins of a linguistic group is deemed to be not scientific if it cannot be tested against records, no theory of the origins of IndoEuropeans, or Uralic peoples, or whatever else, is scientific. We can only maintain that Greek was spoken in Greece about 1200 BC, or German in parts of Germany about 800 AC. If instead we allow for the use of internal linguistic evidence and archaeology, used with the proper techniques of linguistics, Alinei theory is scientific. In addition, it explains facts otherwise unexplained, which is an excellent test. Of course, it might be wrong, in the same way that many other theories of hystorical linguistics and anthroploogy have turned out to be.

Oddly enough, it is the second instance in which I find criticisms of Alinei's theory motivated with statements that he did not issue. Here genetics being the basis of his theory, the other instance is to be found in the discussion of Etruscan language. Apparently, his theory is too new to be accepted easily. A review in English (his books are in Italian for now) is that og Jonathan Morris in Mothe Tongue [1]. Guparra 20:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

An amendment. I found Alinei's reference to Sykes' work. It is in the introduction to the Continuity Theory in the website {http://www.continuitas.com], which is linked to in the article. It is the website of the group of linguists and prehistorians who support the PCT.
  • The work of Sykes quoted is printed in 2001, while the two books by Alinei were printed in 1996 and 2000.
  • For sure, Sykes' work is relevant to Alinei because it gives him further arguments to criticize the Neolithic Farmers Wave Immigration, modelled by Ammermann and Cavalli Sforza and used by Renfrew. Renfrew hypothesizes that the IndoEuropeans were Neolithic farmers coming from the Levant who settled in Europe and by demic prevalence absorbed the scarce Mesolithic native population.
  • It seems to me that the introduction to the PCT provided in the website, should make apparent that the theory relies on linguistics and archaeology, genetics being concurrent for some points only. Guparra 16:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

well, by all means fix the article then. It is still just a stub hacked together from online sources, so somebody who has actually read the book is sorely needed. dab (ᛏ) 18:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

what I shall gladly do. I only need some time because I am in the process of learning how to use wikiediting and, most important, I have to go through the books again. Guparra 20:38, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I understand that language change is not neccessarily connected to genetic shifts (that is 5% genetic shift can change the language of the other 95%). But does it neccesarily contradict (provided that there is other evidence, which seems to be the case)? Alinei's website talks about another better established continuity theory (the Uralic one). There is also the issue of what is meant by pseudo-science vs. science (Feyerabend thought that neither is there a distinction nor would it be advantageous to have one). Balazs 16:31, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I apologize that I shall be incommunicado for a few months. A comment about your comment. In Physics the border between science and pseudo-science can be very thin. Am example is the Superstring theory, which any physicist considers to be Science; nevertheless, we do not know when nor whether it can be actually tested, which would put it in the pseudo-science realm. Guparra 07:41, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Alinei's judgements on Uralic are entirely untrustworthy. There is no established continuity theory for Uralic. Wik's belief in a Uralic substrate, for instance, have been dismissed by most Uralicists. The people whom Alinei generally cites whenever he mentions Uralic languages are a couple of archaeologists without meaningful training in historical linguistics. Alinei is a very deceitful writer and you should follow his footnotes sometimes to see how much he strays from reputable linguistics. CRCulver 19:00, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I would appreciate some references in any language that suggest that Alinei is a quack (which is roughly what you are saying). My limited understand is quite the opposite. Alinei appears to be a respected scientist with considerable accomplishments and acknowledgement behind him. Doubtless his continuity theory is contreversial... but I am yet to see any evidence beyond random anonymous english-speaking internet strangers that he is considered a disreputable or intellectually dishonest man by any group of people or scientific organisation. --70.49.192.75 00:31, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
The greeks (judging by the wikipedia page) do not seem to consider the theory quackery either... Paleolithic Continuity Theory, translated from Greek --70.49.192.75 00:41, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
And what is that link supposed to indicate? All it shows is what one can already infer from other internet sites, etc.---that there is a portion of the Greek population that is ready to swallow up any jargon that may lend credence to the idea of proto-Greeks being autochthonous to Greece (this is not directly connected to the issue of ancient Greek->Modern Greek continuity, but a very different topic), which is a relatively popular idea among them, I have noticed. Alinei is still very deep in the fringe. He has all kinds of whacked-out ideas, like Etruscan being an early form of Hungarian; that the Slavic invasion never occured; that the ancient Thracians were Slavs (he actually states this). If those Greeks you cite realized that, I think they would think differently of Alinei. Alexander 007 22:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
The fact that you even resort to making such a pathetically puerile generalization as "the greeks (judging by the wikipedia page) do not seem to consider the theory quackery" indicates that your mental level is at the 12 year old stage, which explains your taking to Alinei in the first place. Alexander 007 23:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] status of PCT

thanks for the 'review' link (more properly 'self-promotion' I suppose, since it is hosted on their own site and does not appear to have been published elsewhere (?)). Looking it over, I am now quite convinced that PCT can be dismissed as fringy nonsense. It appears to propose linguistic change with geological slowness :) no matter what your take on glottochronology (error margin of 50% or 200%?), I don't think any self-respecting historical linguist would endorse anything like this: Renfrew's timeframe is already borderline acceptable, but this is completely bat-shit beyond the pale. PCT appears, after all, to be the European answer to "Paleolithic Aryan" nonsense in India. It is at least reassuring to see that crackpottery knows no boundaries :) dab (ᛏ) 09:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

How do you derive the age of a proto language? How old is spoken language and how is the date arrived at? Is there any reading material available for non-linguist? --UB 10:59, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
try (the references at) historical linguistics and glottochronology. The accuracy of such estimates depends decisively on the age of the earliest sources. For PIE in particular, see Proto-Indo-European language and Proto-Indo-Europeans. The error margin is frequently admitted to be as high as 100% (i.e. a factor of 2). For PIE, dates between 8000 BC and 2500 BC are possible (10000-4500 BP, i.e. a factor of 2.2): 8000 BC is extremely early and 2500 is extremely late, most people will agree that a 6000-3000 BC range (factor of 1.6) still has a very high confidence. All we know with dead certainty is that the proto-language must have split up by 2000 BC, since our earliest text fragments date to shortly thereafter. Claiming paleolithic age of PIE simply amounts to rejecting wholesale all efforts at dating language change and taking an agnostic position of "prove that it isn't paleolithic". It would entail that languages stayed essentially unchanged for at least 10,000 years, over vast areas of Eurasia. All known language histories show that a language usually changes beyond comprehensibility (meaning it doesn't just 'change', it becomes a wholly different language) over 1,000 years, in rare cases of stability maybe over 2,000 years. Note that in this case, evidence for dating is not restricted to pure glottochronology. For example, since there is a very good reconstruction of PIE terms for "wheel", it seems evident that (late) PIE must post-date the invention of the wheel in around 4500 BC. The evidence for "metal" (Bronze) is less clear, it is possible that some branches had already separated before Bronze became known (after around 3300 BC): these dates dovetail perfectly with a 5000-3500 range of early to late PIE fully consistent with the (wider) glottochronological estimate. dab (ᛏ) 11:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
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