From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 427
Date: 1999-12-05
----- Original Message -----
From: Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
To: Gerry Reinhart-Waller <waluk@...>
Sent: Monday, December 06, 1999 12:10 AM
Subject: Odp: Odp: Odp: [cybalist] Re: Sea People [Just
Joined, gots lots of quesions-help?
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Gerry Reinhart-Waller <waluk@...>
> To: Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
> Sent: Sunday, December 05, 1999 9:14 PM
> Subject: Re: Odp: Odp: [cybalist] Re: Sea People [Just
> Joined, gots lots of quesions-help?
>
>
> > Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
> >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: Gerry Reinhart-Waller <waluk@...>
> > > To: Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
> > > Sent: Saturday, December 04, 1999 6:43 PM
> > > Subject: Re: Odp: [cybalist] Re: Sea People [Just
> Joined,
> > > gots lots of quesions-help?
> > >
> > > > Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > > From: Gerry Reinhart-Waller <waluk@...>
> > > > > To: Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>;
> Alexander
> > > > > Stolbov <astolbov@...>; <cybalist@egroups.com>
> > > > > Sent: Saturday, December 04, 1999 1:07 AM
> > > > > Subject: [cybalist] Re: Sea People [Just Joined,
> gots
> > > lots
> > > > > of quesions-help?
> > > > >
> > > > > Gerry wrote:
> > > > > > Piotr and Alexander:
> > > > > > Just received your post. Are you suggesting
that
> > > Semitic
> > > > > is PIE?
> > > > > > Does this also mean that Dravidian might be PIE?
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > Piotr writes:
> > > > > No, Gerry, neither of us claims that Semitic is IE
> (or
> > > that
> > > > > IE languages derive from Semitic, if that's what
you
> > > mean).
> > > > > We were only (rather fancifully) contemplating the
> > > > > possibility that some IE tribes settled on the
> eastern
> > > coast
> > > > > of the Mediterrnean Sea about the 12th c. BC and
> that
> > > the
> > > > > historic region of Palestine is named after them.
If
> so,
> > > > > their language may have had some influence on
> ancient
> > > > > Hebrew, in the way that, say, Mexican Spanish has
> > > > > contributed something to the vocabulary of
American
> > > English.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Thanks Piotr,But this question has always bothered
me.
> > > Let's take the
> > > > US for example. There are a few towns on the
> US/Mexican
> > > border that
> > > > although they are located in ?Texas are more than
50%
> > > Hispanic and have
> > > > an Hispanic mayor and City Council. Although for
the
> past
> > > century or so
> > > > these towns were "American" but now are "Hispanic"
> > > (Originally, however,
> > > > they were part of Mexico). Thus, these towns have
> gone
> > > through a major
> > > > ethnic change but does the geographic border of the
US
> > > change? Are
> > > > these towns that were once "American" now become
> > > "Mexican"? I'm afraid
> > > > the answer currently is NO. However, in the year
2500
> AD,
> > > future
> > > > archaeologists would definitely label these towns
> > > "Hispanic". And what
> > > > about current day archaeologists doing work in the
> > > southwest. When they
> > > > discover burial sites, then are the remains labeled
> > > "Hispanic" or what?
> > > > So much for truth in archaeology, huh.
> > > >
> > > > > Piotr:
> > > > > Neither Semitic nor Dravidian languages are IE,
but
> it
> > > is
> > > > > possible that all three families (actually Semitic
> is a
> > > > > branch of a larger family called Afroasiatic) have
a
> > > very
> > > > > distant common ancestor. According to some
linguists
> the
> > > > > same protolanguage was the ancestor of the Uralic,
> > > > > Kartvelian and Altaic languages. All these
families
> > > could
> > > > > thus be combined into a single "macrofamily"
called
> > > > > Nostratic.
> > > >
> > > > Gerry here: OK. This agrees with what I had
> assembled
> > > for my
> > > > Language-Origins group. Please correct me if I was
> wrong:
> > > PIE = 1)
> > > > Iranian (Scythian); 2) Indic; 3) Greek; 4) Albanian;
> 5)
> > > Armenian; 6)
> > > > Slasvic; 7) Baltic; 8) Germanic; 9) Celtic; 10)
> Italic;
> > > 11) several
> > > > extinct groups
> > > >
> > > > To PIE we then add Semitic, Dravidian, Kartvelian,
> > > Uralo-Altaic,
> > > > Yukagirian, and isolated families. Thus we have
> > > constructed the
> > > > Nostratic Mega Family.
> > > >
> > > > QUESTION: Who were these people who belonged to the
> > > Nostratic Family?
> > > > And where did they live?
> > > >
> > > Gerry:
> > > Ask those who accept the Nostratic Hypothesis. I
don't.
> > > You're correct about the IE family (not PIE -- that's
> the
> > > name of the hypothetical common ancestor:
> > > Proto-Indo-European, not of the entire family). The
best
> > > known extinct branches are Anatolian (including among
> others
> > > the Hittite and Luwian languages, the most ancient
> members
> > > of the family) and Tocharian.
> > > Piotr
> >
> > Piotr: Yes, I meant IE, sorry. When does a language
> become extinct?
> > I know you'll say it's when the last person speaking
that
> language dies,
> > but if some languages like English have loan words from
> "dead" languages
> > like Latin, this doesn't necessarily mean that Latin is
> extinct.
> > Actually Latin is still taught in some schools, the
> language of law
> > contains many Latin terms, etc. So my question to you
is:
> which
> > criteria do you use to determine when a language is
> extinct?
> > Gerry
>
> Gerry:
>
> School Latin is nobody's first language and is not used by
> anybody for ordinary communication. It has no native
> speakers today even if it enjoys some kind of posthumous
> existence. Unlike living languages, school Latin is
> fossilised and incapable of normal linguistic evolution.
> Loanwords incorporated into the structure of other
languages
> are not living fragments of Latin; they become part of the
> receptor language phonologically and morphologically. In
> what I've written so far there are about 30 words taken
> directly or indirectly from Latin, but nevertheless I'm
> writing English. Classical Latin as spoken 2000 yrs ago is
> now a dead language, although you can still be learnt
> artificially and those who have learnt it can imitate its
> use.
>
> And yet Latin is not EXTINCT! It survives in its
offspring:
> French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian and the other Romance
> languages. As in biology, ALL the descendants of a given
> clade must be regarded as belonging to it. Each Romance
> language represents a (different) historical tranformation
> of Latin, and therefore each of them IS a form of Latin,
> just as birds are dinosaurs -- modified, to be sure, but
> forever members of the Dinosauria clade. Latin didn't
die --
> it has only changed.
>
> Unlike Latin, Anatolian and Tocharian have not left any
> extant descendants -- they represent cul-de-sacs of
> linguistic evolution. They eventually lost all their
native
> speakers and yielded to the dominance of other
languages --
> which doesn't mean that all their speakers were
> exterminated. The death of Manx or Cornish was brought
about
> by language shift -- more and more speakers in each
> consecutive generation switching to English.
>
> Piotr
>