Konu: Re: [historical_linguistics] Digest Number 20
Re recent material
Again,
please circulate this to other relevant groups. Thanks.
Some of
Mark Hubey's specific views are themselves highly controversial (as he himself
notes in other terms). It might also be held that a distinction (albeit
not totally watertight) should be clearly drawn here between traditional
comparative linguistic methodology and more directly probability-based methods
as used for deep-time comparisons ('mass comparison' etc). But the
generalities of what Mark is saying here would rightly be accepted by everyone
with a serious background in historical linguistics.
Polat Kaya is right
to say that, if there really had been deliberate interference (anagrammatisation
etc), probabilistic considerations would not apply in the same way as in the
case of normal linguistic change. What he altogether fails to observe is
that this kind of thing would (to a degree that depends on the specifics of each
case, notably on the degree of systematicity of the proposed interference)
render it very difficult (at times impossible) to assess the likelihood of
proposals such as his. This makes it impossible to exclude chance as a
factor. But, to the extent that such assessment WOULD be possible, this
would also enormously increase the possible identifications of forms in the
different languages, with the result that chance similarity would become much
more likely than his specific proposals. Given that the proposed
interference is as unsystematic and unconstrained as it is, this last will apply
strongly. It is almost certainly impossible in principle for Polat Kaya to
satisfy the criteria I have previously outlined.
Supporting evidence for
this can readily be found in the work of other such writers, who by proceeding
in similar ways (some involving anagrammatisation and some not) arrive at
completely different analyses (often motivated by their own nationalistic and
other biases). These analyses are, in general, no more but no less
persuasive than Polat Kaya's. Some of them, at any rate, do not involve
anagrammatisation and are thus more readily assessed. Polat Kaya's refusal
to compare his work with theirs is a serious mistake.
For these reasons,
theories such as Polat Kaya's cannot be accepted unless they are (a) plausible
and (b) supported by strong, hard historical or textual evidence. Neither
of these applies in this case. The enterprise involved is altogether
infeasible on the scale proposed and no remotely similar case is known.
Even minor reforms such as spelling changes are often resisted
effectively. And there is no historical or textual evidence of these
events having occurred. Even if Polat Kaya should be right (and that is
very unlikely indeed), we could not demonstrate this without such evidence
(because the linguistic evidence itself cannot support him, for the reasons
given above).
I am glad of the opportunity to expand my comments so as to
make this clearer.
Polat Kaya's specific claims in his latest material
are of the same kind as before. They are unsupported by evidence and they
run against established etymologies. There is no reason to accept
them.
No one would seriously suggest that Turkish was 'anagrammatised'
from Latin or owes its Turkic (or other older) words to Latin loans (Polat Kaya
in reverse). But this is no more implausible than Polat Kaya's own
position. It would need only the same level of support that his views
would need. Indeed, it is arguably more plausible, since Latin is recorded
earlier than Turkish. There is no good evidence of Turkish in ancient
times as Polat Kaya claims, unless one assumes the validity of his position in
advance. In cases such as Bilgamesh no link is demonstrated. But in
any event Polat Kaya has not defended his own views effectively, and indeed this
is probably unattainable. In fact, it was only in response to earlier
criticism that he shifted his focus in the case of accelerate from
English to Latin. This case is in fact even worse than I have suggested,
in that eg -rate in accelerate is not a morpheme in Latin (or even
in English); but originally he treated it as one.
On other points: It is
a nonsensical exaggeration to say that inflected languages 'do not follow
rules'. And, although they are typically analysed as deriving from more
agglutinating languages, everybody knows that this is to some degree an artefact
of the methodology and probably misses some vanished irregularities. (Even
Turkish has some of these.) In addition, agglutinating systems can become
inflectional by wholly natural means. But the onus is not on people like
Mark Hubey & me to explain all this. It is on Polat Kaya to learn
enough historical linguistics to engage usefully in this kind of
discussion.
On sources: Wallis Budge is an important historical figure in
Egyptology but his material is now dated. As noted earlier, some of Polat
Kaya's sources are dubious (eg Sitchin). And one certainly cannot assume
that the stories in Genesis are factually true or even based on
facts.
There is still no reason at all to accept Polat Kaya's ideas, and
this will not change unless he can do some things (as outlined by me) which he
has shown no signs of being willing or able to do.