Re: [cybalist] Re: Example: Burushaski

John Croft wrote:

>
> Gerry Reinhart-Waller asked:

My question to

> the
> > group is reasonably simple: why is Burushaski, that extraordinary
> > language in the Karakoram Mountains, considered to be a language
> rather
> > than a dialect?
>
> I understand it related to degrees of mutual intelligibility. If
> someone does not understand another speaker, they are said to be
> speaking different languages. If they can, then they are said to be
> speaking the same language, but perhaps with a different dialect.
> The
> situation that makes it more complex is the existence of a dialect
> chain, where neighbours can understand each other (eg. Flemish,
> Dutch,
> Lowland German, Saxon, Bavarian, Swiss Deutch etc.) but the Swiss
> cannot understand Flemish. Where then do you draw the line?

Gerry: The line is the broomstick on which the Flemish, Dutch, Lowland
German, Saxon, Bavarian, Swiss Deutch etc. sit. At the extremes i.e.
Flemish and Swiss, they cannot understand each other whereas in the
middle is Lowland German and likely Flemish and Swiss can both
understand and converse in Lowland German. Please correct me if I'm
wrong.

> There are similar dialect chains between all the Scandinavian
> languages, the North & West Slavic, the Romance languages, and South
> Slavic. The fact that Spanish is considered a different language to
> Portugese, French and Italian, in the European case is due to
> political, rather than linguistic considerations. I cannot
> understand
> someone speaking the Gorbals "dialect" of Glasgow, for instance, yet
> for political reasons they are considered different dialects of
> English rather than different languages.

Gerry: Politics continues to raise its ugly head in academe; both in
linguistics and archaeology.

> I found this pattern interesting when I was working with the people
> of
> the Southern Highlands, a population of a quarter of a million people
> with what was said to be 22 different languages. But Angal Heneng,
> Kewa, Erave and Samberigi could be considered a chain of dialects, or
> different languages, depending upon who was doing the classifying and
> where then the lines were drawn.

Gerry: Again, classification is in the eye of the beholder. Not too
different from Darwin's evolutionary classification.

> As for Burushaski I understand it is a language with a number of
> dialects (Hunsa, Gilka and another I do not know). But as an
> "isolated language" having no other cognates, it is generally spoken
> of as if it were one language not two or three.

Gerry: What I've discovered is that the Burushaski people inhabited 3
rugged mountainous areas of Pakistan: the Hunza, Nagar and Yasin Valleys
but that these valleys are part of the Gilgit territory.

Some folks are trying to link Burushaski with the American Indian
languages of Hopi (1st, 2nd and 3rd mesas in Arizona), Luseno (in the LA
to San Diego area) and Mattole (an Athabaskan language family spoken in
NW CA. If you're interested I have a contact I can provide. Just
because Burushaski is located in the Hindu-Kush at the juncture of I-E,
Sino-Tibetan, and Altaic language families doesn't mean that's where
Burushaski origins lie.

I also came across something interesting: Burushaski nouns have 4
genders: 1) male human; 2) female humans; 3) animals of either sex and
some inanimate objects; 4) remaining inanimate objects. I wonder where
the Burushaski place "monkeys"? Saw an interesting "miniatures" exhibit
at one of the local museums and alongside humans were monkeys wearing
similar attire. Any comments?

Best wishes,
Gerry

Gerry