Well, there's also the question of 'Spanish', and I assume the
'authors' take the view that languages somehow have an existence
independent of their users, and of a kind which is a Platonic ideal.
Maybe they also thought that any language has two identifiable
parents, with substrates being on a par with what we would treat as
the diachronic name label.
Of course, I've not had time to look at any report of the piece of
'work', but this may be a case where the Wildean approach is the most
apt.
Best wishes,
Gordon
<
gordonselway@...>
At 9:07 this morning P&G wrote:
>Shouldn't this have raised a few eyebrows:
>
>>The resulting tree matches many existing ideas about language
>>development. Spanish and >Portuguese come out as sisters, for
>>example - both are cousins to German, and Hindi is a more >distant
>>relation to all three.
>
>In what way is Hindi a "more distant" relation to Spanish-Portuguese
>than German?
>
>Peter