And yet Greek is really far from the “mainstream” of Indo-European.
I know Latin, French and basic Italian and Spanish + English, German and pidgin Dutch + Polish and some understanding of Russian (SOME) as well as passable Farsi and Sanskrit, Hindi and Marathi — its not as impressive as it sounds as I do see common strains in many of these - and there are words, grammatical sense etc. that seem to repeat.
Armenian was passable as it seemed Iranic to me
But when I tried to pick up modern Greek, it was all Greek to me. I could not detect linkages. Yes, granted, I’m not a linguist and far better men have found linkages, but I couldn’t.
Did Greek take on a different sub-strata (Pelasgian) or what?
Unlike most languages, the native speakers of Greek parked it thousands of years ago, and while under foreign rule for much of that interval, they're still largely where their ancestors have been for over a hundred generations, as their language has slowly evolved.
A well-preserved juniper post, painted blue and with modern door hinges, was recovered from a modern village house simply because it looked suspiciously old. The sample we were given did not fit anything in our Neolithic inventory, so we sent a piece of it to Heidelberg to see what radiocarbon analysis would reveal. The date is 2117 B.C. + 110 years, which means it is from some Early Bronze Age occupation near the lake at Kastoria. (Kuniholm 1998, 4)
Yes, this does actually mean (given the right climate and conditions) that four thousand-year-old pieces of wood can be reused in building! Given the 'blue door' phenomenon, it should be obvious that the latest dendro dates from a structure, site or culture are the most significant.Fifteen Frequently Asked Questions | Centuries of Darkness website