Maybe not even donkey tracks, though the larger the track the more tempting
the possibility of what's at the other end seems. One problem with the
wheel is that once you leave flat open country your problems multiply
Language drift takes time, but it builds on either or both of relative
isolation (boundaries becoming isoglosses) and divergent values existing
prior to the division between dialects. (That is, natural or political
boundaries.) My guess (for which there is no evidence, really, other than
plausibility, so it's a just so story) is that each generation of the
movement to the West left a set of people settled behind them. Where there
were no major boundaries and easy communication a common identity was
reinforced; where there was the Rhine or a major forest or the Alps
splitting must have started almost as soon as settlement. (There's
certainly later evidence for the Rhine as a major isogloss marker. (And,
very roughly, the Rhine, the Alps, the Balkans and the Adriatic look like
dividers between Hellenic, Italic, Celtic/Gallic and Germanic.)
The common vocabulary gives us people with sheep, horses, wheels, carts, a
certain distribution of male/female roles (*duhitar, "the little milker",
becomes daughter), a sky-god religion. After that...well, we can see the
process of turning metaphor into dead metaphor happening in a way we can
examine in Hometic Greek, as well as borrowing to enrich the language
("tyrannos" seems to have been Lydian for "king"). (Interestingly, I can't
think of many words for chieftan or king which have a common root - wanax,
basileus, cyningas, rex.)
Conquest and politics are fast, language change is slow, and human memory
over even a generation is chancy. (If you had asked an English person in
about 1860 which European nationality he felt closest to, he would have
said "German". If you asked the same thing sixty years later, not only
would you get a different answer, but your later interlocutor would think
of his view as the way it had always been.)
no subject
Maybe not even donkey tracks, though the larger the track the more tempting the possibility of what's at the other end seems. One problem with the wheel is that once you leave flat open country your problems multiply
Language drift takes time, but it builds on either or both of relative isolation (boundaries becoming isoglosses) and divergent values existing prior to the division between dialects. (That is, natural or political boundaries.) My guess (for which there is no evidence, really, other than plausibility, so it's a just so story) is that each generation of the movement to the West left a set of people settled behind them. Where there were no major boundaries and easy communication a common identity was reinforced; where there was the Rhine or a major forest or the Alps splitting must have started almost as soon as settlement. (There's certainly later evidence for the Rhine as a major isogloss marker. (And, very roughly, the Rhine, the Alps, the Balkans and the Adriatic look like dividers between Hellenic, Italic, Celtic/Gallic and Germanic.)
The common vocabulary gives us people with sheep, horses, wheels, carts, a certain distribution of male/female roles (*duhitar, "the little milker", becomes daughter), a sky-god religion. After that...well, we can see the process of turning metaphor into dead metaphor happening in a way we can examine in Hometic Greek, as well as borrowing to enrich the language ("tyrannos" seems to have been Lydian for "king"). (Interestingly, I can't think of many words for chieftan or king which have a common root - wanax, basileus, cyningas, rex.)
Conquest and politics are fast, language change is slow, and human memory over even a generation is chancy. (If you had asked an English person in about 1860 which European nationality he felt closest to, he would have said "German". If you asked the same thing sixty years later, not only would you get a different answer, but your later interlocutor would think of his view as the way it had always been.)