Re: [tied] Ah, look at all the lonely languages

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <petegray@...> wrote:

> > How much evidence needs to be compiled to show a relationship, one
> > language to another.
>
> It is regular patterns of relationship, rather than quantity of

similar

> words, that linguists look for. But there are a number of actual

cases

> where opinions differ from linguist to linguist, and change back

and forth

> with time and swings of fashion, so it isn't a clear cut process.

In the

> case of Hittite, it was the recognition of a highly unusual paradigm
> in -r/-n- that finally proved its connection to IE.

Is there any way to resolve such a difference? Guess this job of
information ebbing and flowing is what academics is all about.

Gerry