Re: [tied] number of cases in PIE

I want to endorse Sergei's opinion, and to warn all people interested in Old Prussian that a dead language "revived" in this way has no value whatsoever as historical-linguistic evidence. The same holds for "revived Dalmatian" (also published on the Internet). There are also several different conlangs based on PIE. "Talking" them may be good fun as long as one does not confuse them with the real (and only partly reconstructible) thing.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sergejus Tarasovas" <S.Tarasovas@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 1:33 PM
Subject: RE: [tied] number of cases in PIE


> Mr. Palmaitis is an aggressive Balto-centrist (though he gaduated in semitology and only later passed qualification exams in Baltistics), and a great deal of the stuff on his site is idiosyncratic. I personally don't like his backslapping ("such and such auctores think that ... . So
much the worse for them -- I just know better.") or buffoon ("I've tried to reconstruct Old Prussion for so long... now it only remains for me to hang myself since it turned out that...") way of self-expression. AFAIK, his only real achievement in Old Prussian studies is the "revival" of
Old Prussian (or, rather, creation of conlangish "New Prussian"), having little to do with real Old Prussian reconstruction. I've never come across references to his works in serious publications on Old Prussian.