Re: Keeping up, barely :-)

--- In cybalist@..., "Rex H. McTyeire" <rexbo@...> wrote:

> Richard adds:
> O-:Languages _do_ inherit acquired characteristics.
>
> I would think that also includes Latin, unless you think it was

born

> sterile in one small pocket of Italy..only to export
> influence; with no
> external inheritance prior to the advance of the legions.

It does include Latin. What point are you making?

> O-:I have read that the Rumanian dialect isoglosses show evidence

that

> O-:Rumania was settled recently.
>
> Highly recommend not spending any more money on this man's
> books until he has spent some time here.

Can't comply. I haven't spent any yet. I think I read the remark in
a review in one of the learned journals, possibly 'Word'. It would
have been a review of a book describing the various varieties
of 'Moldavian'. I remember the reviewer was very angry that anyone
thought it made sense to consider 'Moldavian' dialects a coherent
group, for they are a continuation of the Romanian dialects of
Romania.

> O-:The Albanians have not even got half of Illyria.
>
> How does this even remotely relate to the origin of their language?

Just a reaction to the complaint that it is claimed that Illyrians
and Dacians have swapped round.

> O-:Normally isoglosses are very tangled
> O-:lines without a clear pattern. But when people settle an area,
> O-:isoglosses appear parallel to the direction of settlement.
>
> What was the direction of movement into Italy of the people who

would

> define Latin?

We don't have an early enough dialect survey :)
I don't know how long the isogloss traces of the movement would have
lasted.

> (Hang in Alex..keep stirring 'em up :-)

Unfortunately, educating Alex is hard going. It doen't seem to have
occurred to him to wonder how the outcome of dent- 'tooth' taken from
a non-Latin source was going to differ from the outcome of Latin
de:ns, dent- 'tooth'.

Richard.