Re: [tied] Re: Why did Proto-Germanic break up?

----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 11:09 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Why did Proto-Germanic break up?


> It's not very important to me. I thought it was important to you,
> based on your reaction.

What upsets me is that people quote unjustified figures as if they were
facts. "30%" has become a widely circulated factoid in this way.

> What is the "ordinary" percentage of difficult-to-etymologise roots
> in an IE language then, ballpark figure?

Something of the order of 10-20%, PERHAPS, but I don't want to be remembered
as the creator of a new factoid. Peter Trudgill once gave a concrete figure
as an estimate of the percentage of RP-speakers in Britain. He still
shudders with embarrassment when people quote the figure and refer to him as
the expert who did the calculation: it was actually based on regionally
biassed data (all of it from Norwich!), and was probably grossly inaccurate.

> What do think of Rick
> McAllister's now defunct list of non-IE roots in Germanic?

Lots of them _are_ IE by any standards, some are doubtful, a few are really
enigmatic.