From: Dennis Poulter
Message: 2161
Date: 2000-04-22
----- Original Message -----
From: Gerry Reinhart-Waller <waluk@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>; Dennis Poulter <dpoulter@...>
Sent: Thursday, 20 April, 2000 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: [cybalist] Example: Burushaski, a dialect or language?
> Dennis Poulter wrote on Tue, 18 Apr 2000 12:32:56
> >
> > So, in conclusion, there seems no hard and fast rule over what
constitutes a
> > dialect as opposed to a language. In normal usage, a dialect is
considered a
> > variant of a standard language, without being too precise over the exact
> > relationship. So, what would Burushaski a dialect of?
> >
> > Cheers
> > Dennis
>
> Since for the moment Dennis I have no answer to your question regarding
> which language Burushaski would be a dialect of, let me ask you another
> question or two. How many word stems are needed to *prove* a
> correlation between two languages? Ten, twenty, several hundred? And
> why can't Burushaski be correlated with one or several of the American
> Indian languages?
>
> Gerry
> --
>
I can't answer your second question, Gerry. I know nothing about Burushaski
or native American languages.
As to your first, proof is a very elusive thing in linguistics.
Nevertheless, to postulate a relationship between any two languages, one has
to consider syntax, morphology and the languages' (and their speakers')
histories as well as finding common word stems. In the obvious case, the
high degree of similarity in vocabulary and grammar between English and
French is primarily a result of our common history. The two languages are
only "related" at the level where Proto-Germanic is related to Proto-Italic.
Cheers
Dennis