[tied] Re: Laryngeal Loss (was Does Koenraad Elst Meet Hock s Chall

From: tgpedersen
Message: 17433
Date: 2003-01-06

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <petegray@...> wrote:
> > > Since blood groups are not even spread around the world, but are
> > > clustered and regional, and since linguistic features are also
not
> > > evenly spread, but clustered and regional, it is therefore to be
> > >expected that there will a "high correlation" between at least
> > > some blood groups, and some linguistic
> > > features. Any such "high correlation" is therefore
statistically
> > >insignificant.
>
> > I don't understand what you're saying.
>
> OK, I'll rephrase. Since blood groups and languages are clumped,
it is
> highly likely that some blood-group-clump and some language clump
will
> roughly coincide. But since coincidence somewhere is highly
likely, it
> proves nothing.
>
> A second and different point is that there might be another factor,
namely
> the roughly static nature of populations as a source for both
language
> clumping and blood-group clumping.
>
> Take a real example: Blood groups are regional - for example,
Kel+ is
> found almost entirely in the Pacific. Language groups are
regional - for
> example, Polynesian is found almost entirely in the Pacific. That
in itself
> does not mean there is any causal connection between someone being
Kel+ and
> speaking Polynesian. Correlation does not equal cause. If the
history of
> the world had been different, Kel+ people would be speaking
something else.
>
> Here we can suggest this third factor, namely social groups which
share
> genes and share
> a culture including related languages. But that doesn't mean the
> blood-group has anything to do with the particular qualities of the
> language.
>
> Peter

Of course. You can't conclude from co-occurrence to causal
connection. But there is a world of difference between "not
necessarily" and "necessarily not".

Torsten