The Arbitrary and capricious nature of PIE "reconstruction."

From: mkelkar2003
Message: 36977
Date: 2005-04-07

Here is how PIE reconstruction works as explained by McWhorter (2001,
p. 45-46). He gives seven IE cognates for the word "sister-in-law".

Sanskrit: snusha Greek: nuos

Old English: snoru Armenian: nu

Russian: snokha Albenian: nuse

Latin: nurus

In Armenian and Albenian the word actually means bride not
sister-in-law. He explains this phenomenon as an example of semantic
change.

The PIE word is reconstructed as follows:

1. The word should begin with sn rather than n. The missing s in the
languages has been lost due to attrition.

2. The first vowel must be u rather than an o. Russian and Old
English have muted that to an o. The majority rule applies here. So
so far the proto word is *snu

3. The next consonant should be an s as shown in Sanskrit, Albenian
and Greek. S has mutated to a k in Russian and r in Latin and Old
English. Therefore, *snus

4. So far so good. The most twisted part is the ending. The majority
of the above seven words have a masculine ending except for Sansrkit
and Russian. So the original PIE word MUST be masculine! and end with
an os rather than an "a" a feminine ending, as it does CORRECTLY in
Sanskrit and Russian. Therefore PIE *snusos. Science does not work
by the rule of the majority.

The IE linguists FORCE corruption on Sanskrit, the language of the
sacred texts which are known to have been preserved for at least 3500
years. Ironically IE linguistics would not even be possible without
the Vedas.

What evidence is there that there WAS even an EIGHT word that
preceeded snusha? Why can't the linguists explain how the most
complete word that is known today "snusha" some how got corrupted or
diluted or mispronounced or whatever to the varios forms. If the word
"snusha" has been preserved for 5000 or more years it is
discriminatory to put it on the same plane as the word "snoru" which
got lost in a few hundred years. Are you going to penalize Vedic
Sansrit for being so extremly antique and perfectly preserved?

McWhorter, John (2001), "The Power of Babel: A Natural History of
Language," New York: Henry Holt and