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

Isolates become isolates only because of their historical contexts.

If all but one of a large language of families die before being written or studied it will be considered an isolate. Basque may have been but one of a number of related pre PIE languages. I readily admit that this is unprovable speculation in this case.

If a language fragments into dialects, preferably some distance from each other, it will not be considered an isolate.

I assume that 'poor little Indo-European', like Austro-Asiatic, to have been a lonely isolate at one time, barring theories concerning Nostratic etc.

One does not have to assume that an isolate has always been an isolate from the onset of the earliest spoken languages.

I like linguists who don't ascribe any unprovable features to isolates.

Guto

Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

----- Original Message ----- From: Gerry To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2003 10:17 PM Subject: Re: [tied] Ah, look at all the lonely languages > Yet Basque isn't a lonely isolated language and fuels the Basque separatist movement. It _is_ a linguistic isolate, and politics has nothing to do with that. > The Basque language is an inflected language whose origin is still somewhat puzzling. The fact that it is not an Indoeuropean language, and shows no ressemblance to languages in neighbouring countries, has led to the formulation of a variety of hypotheses to explain its existence. Owing to some similarities with the Georgian language, some linguists think it could be related to languages from the Caucasus. Those who believe in a Basque/Georgian relationship don't deserve to be called linguists, IMO. > Others relate the language to non-Arabic languages from the north of Africa. Meaning Berber? That's as absurd as the Georgian connection. > One of the most likely hypotheses argues that the Basque language developed "in situ", in the land of the primitive Basques. The ancestors of the Basque-speakers must have lived in Iberia for a long time. No-one questions that. > That theory is supported by the discovery of some Basque-type skulls in Neolithic sites, which ruled out the thesis of immigration from other areas. But Basque is a language, not a skull shape. Nobody really knows what language was spoken in and around the Basque Country during the Neolithic, and the hypothesis that it was some stage of pre-Proto-Basque is unprovable, even if not impossible. > Many think it is a very old language because there are words, such as that for axe ("aizkora" or "haizkora") for example, that have the same root as the word rock ("aitz" or "haitz"). The fact that OE seax 'knife, short sword' (the favourite weapon of the Seaxe or Saxons) is possibly related to Lat. saxum 'rock' doesn't mean that the Saxons have lived in England since the stone age. >>> IOW, could Sumer perhaps have been a "city of the gods" (or even of the untouchables)? >> I don't think I understand this question. > I'm simply trying to pull out of the atmosphere some reasons why a language becomes (or remains) an isolate. Guess another answer could be "aliens from outer space". If you mean that linguistic isolates may have been planted on earth by gods from space, it doesn't seem to be a good topic for this group. There must be e-groups devoted to alien abductions, Lost Civilisations and cranky para-religious movements out there. Piotr

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