>From: H�kan Lindgren <h5@...>
>Danny, I read your posts with great interest, but still I have to say that
>Nostraticists make me sceptic. The Nostraticists I've seen just compare
>lists of words to show that IE is related to other language families. With
>a list of words (and some imagination) you can prove anything. Take a look
>at this small list:
> Etruscan Hungarian Finnish
>
> ais(ar) isten jumala
>(god)
> apa apa is�
>(father)
> avil �v vuosi
>(year)
> eca ez t�m�/n�m� (this)
> hud hat kuusi
>(six)
Well first of all, I never said I was 100% pro-Nostratic; I have seen actual
sound-correspondences with some evidence to back it up. That doesn't mean
that the entire Ursprach can be recreated. It would be impossible, I feel,
to come up with a common grammar, simply because of the fact that Semitic
forms plurals with internal vowel changes, IE and Uralic form plurals by
moving to another set of case endings, and Kartvelian, Altaic and Dravidian
just add a plural suffix/infix. You can't have two and two make three, four
and five simultaneously, of course. Unless you have a highly esoteric
theory of mathematics...
My comment about laws of thermodynamics in language I will retract; I wasn't
even sure what I was talking about. What I meant about language change is
hard to express with just an identification with a law of nature. I
should've used a different term, or set of terms...
I am still researching what could have been the origin of language itself
among the _homo sapiens_ species. I could of course get down to arguments
of monogenesis (the "Babel" theory which is linked to religious dogma) vs.
polygenesis (more in line with evolutionary concepts). But I don't really
care to, because... I could lean both ways, I'm sure. All we know is that
someone or someones invented language, just like an unknown person or people
invented the wheel. (It would at least make great sci-fi.)
Regarding Patrick's Proto-Language theory: I know I'm playing devil's
advocate here, but he does have a few good points. I'd investigate all new
"findings" in the light of all of what has been proven in the past.
Religion, and I can think specifically of Islam and Catholic Christianity,
continually desires (or at least should strive) to explain beliefs in a
rational, relevant fashion, always evaluating itself in the light of what is
natural science (i.e. it would be foolish to say that the earth literally
has four corners, even though the Bible uses that idiom). Yet orthodoxy and
historical continuity cannot be sacrificed; doctrines like
transubstantiation and the perpetual virginity of Mary are matters of faith,
not science, and may or may not be true in a purely rational view.
Anyway, his 90 monosyllables and highly symmetric phonology based on triads
of e-a-o vowel syllables, comes from a view that language developed
monogenetically (that is, from one tradition, such as Babel) and was
carefully planned. There's a Sumeriologist who believes that Sumerican was
diligently invented so that basic notions are assigned to a CV or VC or CVC
group, and the word roots can be concatenated to form related concepts,
usually by compounding. I, however, believe language developed more
pragmatically and time-relevant. I think it started with naming objects,
animals and other people. And even if you believe in the Great Flood, that
doesn't mean you have to believe in linguistic monogenesis. Babel seems to
indicate more of a scattering of mankind by divine providence (as opposed to
the unifying of mankind under a religious-political human leadership
rallying around a tower that was supposed to reach heaven). I doubt the
ancient Africans knew of kangaroos, nor Siberians of ostriches.
I also hold to a more liberal proto-phonology, since perhaps humanity didn't
discover the notion of phonemics and allophonics until later. This could've
been the case with cultures that wrote with ideological symbols (Mayans,
Chinese, Sumerians, Egyptians), where writing possibly came before a
discovery of the fact that, say, T in "tea" and T in "two" sound different,
but are really the same phoneme and should be represented by one phonetic
symbol, not two.
But my view of things will always be fallible; you never stop learning about
the secrets of the universe which are longing to be revealed...
Danny Wier ����
Lufkin, Texas USA
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