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May. 13th, 2002 02:05 amLast night, went to S and J's housewarming, in French's Road. Very nice house, fun party, much socializing. Met JM's new partner Charlie; seems very nice bloke. G and IWJ seemed to get on quite well for once, which was a surprise. I seemed to put my foot in it, chatting to J about one of her other partners who I saw at Whitby, but I don't think it was avoidable. Polyness doesn't seem to save people from much relationship- or jealousy-angst, unfortunately.
The evening ended not quite so well; G became extremely drunk and demanded a taxi back (though it would be only half an hour's walk); I said I had insufficient cash with me (and was unwilling to ask the taxi driver to stop at a cashpoint on the way, as it seemed silly). He then sulked; I suggested we should crash at J and S's house, but for no explicable reason he insisted on sleeping in his own bed that night, point blank. So I said we'd just have to walk back. MR (who has cut off his hair and beard - he's almost unrecognizable) said he'd come with us. G still complained bitterly, and J offered me money for a taxi (which I felt I couldn't accept). Anyway, at length we set off to walk back, and although G had claimed he would fall over with drunkenness as soon as he stepped outside, in fact he seemed perfectly capable of walking and chatting to us. Midway along Chesterton Road (I keep typing that as Toad!) he again demanded I should get some cash out of a nearby cashpoint and order a taxi; MR and I said this was silly, as it was only about 20 minutes walk home then; G stopped in the road and refused to walk any further. Thinking he would follow eventually, I carried on walking back to our house with MR. But G didn't seem to follow, and I became a little concerned. MR then encouraged me to carry on, as a matter of principle, so I walked on with him as far as his house (on Chesterton High Street). Once he'd gone inside, I felt overwhelmed with guilt and concern again, and turned back instantly to look for G. Five minutes up the road, I found him (heading in my direction). Apparently he'd been worried I wouldn't be able to get into the house (since he had the key). Ah well! We then got back home, where G annoyed me a bit more by insisting on drinking some of his housemate's Heineken (though by any standards he was already drunk enough, I think). And so eventually to bed, at some absurd time of the morning. He was very apologetic this morning, and I guess I don't mind that much any more. He's also lost his babelfish earring, unfortunately.
Today I have been working on usefulish things. I have done ridiculous quantities of long division (due to lack of available calculator) to determine a plausible date for Proto-Indo-European on my shiny new tree (based on evidence for rates of change given by known dates in the same tree). The answer is, rather surprisingly, 8000BC. This is much earlier than the archaeological consensus (such as it is), but very close to the date suggested by Colin Renfrew (renegade archaeologist and alcoholic Master of Jesus :-) - who has argued for some time that the only archaeological evidence for large-scale population movement across Europe, such as might correspond to Indo-European, is the spread of agriculture from the Fertile Crescent. His theory also suggests an initial split with Hittite, just as I have found. To be honest, I was never much convinced by his arguments before, but now I might look at them again. All very interesting.
Also, I have been working more on Linear A. It's really extremely interesting - it seems clear that most of the tablets are accounts of supplies of something - the best-preserved ones take the form (with capital letters representing words):
X; Y (always in 2nd position); A 5
B 12
C 6
Z (probably meaning "total") 23
J; Y; B 10
D 2 1/2
C 4 1/4
Z 16 1/2
and that sort of thing (yes the error in the example is deliberate). I'm trying to get an idea of the sort of language involved, by collecting frequency data for syllables, and also for words. There seems to be a bit of evidence for declension, which is interesting. Also, it seems plausible that at least some of the mappings of Linear B pronunciations to Linear A are valid. On that basis, it should be possible to try to make comparisons between the language of Linear A and other languages known to have existed in the Mediterranean area at the time, and possibly find similarities. Possibly I'm deluding myself, but it's certainly a lot of fun!
Tomorrow G should hear whether he got the job he was interviewed for on Friday - fingers crossed!
The evening ended not quite so well; G became extremely drunk and demanded a taxi back (though it would be only half an hour's walk); I said I had insufficient cash with me (and was unwilling to ask the taxi driver to stop at a cashpoint on the way, as it seemed silly). He then sulked; I suggested we should crash at J and S's house, but for no explicable reason he insisted on sleeping in his own bed that night, point blank. So I said we'd just have to walk back. MR (who has cut off his hair and beard - he's almost unrecognizable) said he'd come with us. G still complained bitterly, and J offered me money for a taxi (which I felt I couldn't accept). Anyway, at length we set off to walk back, and although G had claimed he would fall over with drunkenness as soon as he stepped outside, in fact he seemed perfectly capable of walking and chatting to us. Midway along Chesterton Road (I keep typing that as Toad!) he again demanded I should get some cash out of a nearby cashpoint and order a taxi; MR and I said this was silly, as it was only about 20 minutes walk home then; G stopped in the road and refused to walk any further. Thinking he would follow eventually, I carried on walking back to our house with MR. But G didn't seem to follow, and I became a little concerned. MR then encouraged me to carry on, as a matter of principle, so I walked on with him as far as his house (on Chesterton High Street). Once he'd gone inside, I felt overwhelmed with guilt and concern again, and turned back instantly to look for G. Five minutes up the road, I found him (heading in my direction). Apparently he'd been worried I wouldn't be able to get into the house (since he had the key). Ah well! We then got back home, where G annoyed me a bit more by insisting on drinking some of his housemate's Heineken (though by any standards he was already drunk enough, I think). And so eventually to bed, at some absurd time of the morning. He was very apologetic this morning, and I guess I don't mind that much any more. He's also lost his babelfish earring, unfortunately.
Today I have been working on usefulish things. I have done ridiculous quantities of long division (due to lack of available calculator) to determine a plausible date for Proto-Indo-European on my shiny new tree (based on evidence for rates of change given by known dates in the same tree). The answer is, rather surprisingly, 8000BC. This is much earlier than the archaeological consensus (such as it is), but very close to the date suggested by Colin Renfrew (renegade archaeologist and alcoholic Master of Jesus :-) - who has argued for some time that the only archaeological evidence for large-scale population movement across Europe, such as might correspond to Indo-European, is the spread of agriculture from the Fertile Crescent. His theory also suggests an initial split with Hittite, just as I have found. To be honest, I was never much convinced by his arguments before, but now I might look at them again. All very interesting.
Also, I have been working more on Linear A. It's really extremely interesting - it seems clear that most of the tablets are accounts of supplies of something - the best-preserved ones take the form (with capital letters representing words):
X; Y (always in 2nd position); A 5
B 12
C 6
Z (probably meaning "total") 23
J; Y; B 10
D 2 1/2
C 4 1/4
Z 16 1/2
and that sort of thing (yes the error in the example is deliberate). I'm trying to get an idea of the sort of language involved, by collecting frequency data for syllables, and also for words. There seems to be a bit of evidence for declension, which is interesting. Also, it seems plausible that at least some of the mappings of Linear B pronunciations to Linear A are valid. On that basis, it should be possible to try to make comparisons between the language of Linear A and other languages known to have existed in the Mediterranean area at the time, and possibly find similarities. Possibly I'm deluding myself, but it's certainly a lot of fun!
Tomorrow G should hear whether he got the job he was interviewed for on Friday - fingers crossed!
