Re: [tied] Re: language shift ( it was Celts & Cimmerians)

At 5:00:44 PM on Saturday, November 8, 2003, Peter P wrote:

> I am not sure what 'related' means. If I look at a Finnish
> etymological dictionary I discover that 50% or more of the
> words are borrowed from IE. Especially Finnish but Italian
> too, borrow extensively from English. There are Latin
> loans in Finnish. Both languages presumably can be traced
> to Nostratic or Eurasian (asuming there is a real basis to
> those theories).

> True the ancient connections are vague, but the modern
> connections are real enough. Perhaps I see relatedness
> slightly differently from the traditional view. If two
> languages use mumerous words that can be traced to a
> similar etymological sources are they related? I would say
> at least partially.

The obvious difficulty with this is that 'related' already
has a rather well-recognized sense in historical
linguistics, 'descended from a common ancestor'; in many
contexts it can safely be understood to have an even
stronger sense, 'demonstrably descended from a common
ancestor'. In the former sense sense Finnish and Latin may
be related; in the latter they are not. As for borrowings,
it does not seem useful to conflate even quite extensive
lexical borrowing with genetic relationship, however
important the former may be in the history of a given
language.

Brian