Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/preh₂-

Why was this deleted?

• from early Corded Ware Oghuric pӗr. —46.114.39.44 18:43, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Because that is complete nonsense. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 20:34, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

But why? Proto-Indo-European *per- and Oghuric pӗr are not similar enough? What do you need more? I just want to understand it. —Kargeal (talk) 09:39, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

What evidence do you have that this derives from Oghuric? Can you cite any sources? How do you know that there was any borrowing, or derivation, and that this is not simply a coincidence? Dghmonwiskos (talk) 11:17, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

(Edit cnflict) First of all, what exactly is "Corded Ware Oghuric"? Corded Ware refers to a Neolithic culture that predated writing in the area by perhaps a millennium. The consensus has been that they might very well be Indo-European, but nobody really knows. The Oghur languages were spoken by people who were first known in that area perhaps two millennia later. What evidence do you have that:

1. The Oghurs even existed that far back. The Wikipedia article mentions 2,500 years ago as a possible date for Proto-Turkic, which would be before the Oghur languages split off. The Corded Ware people date to upwards of 4,500 years ago.
2. That they were in the area before history records them as leaving Asia, which was less than 2,000 years ago.
3. That they had any contact with Indo-Europeans
4. That the Indo-Europeans would have borrowed such basic vocabulary.

There aren't that many single syllables possible, so coincidences are not only possible, but likely- due to the same phenomenon that produces the Birthday problem. You can't predict which coincidence will occur, but that's offset by the fact that people only notice the coincidences, not the vast majority of boring non-matches. Single matches are meaningless- you have to show patterns. Chuck Entz (talk) 11:25, 15 October 2019 (UTC)