Re: [tied] Re: IE right & 10

Glen:

> Harald:
> > Quite often the have fingercounting which ranges up to 5, 10 or 20.
> > Extremely seldom, if at all, are there monomorphemic numerals up to
> > exactly 6.
>
> I think this is an incorrect way of thinking about language. If you
> really wrap your head around what it would be like to draw out a
> linguistic map of languages during the neolithic, you'd realize that
> you'd end up with a pattern like a continuum where there aren't any
> hard edges. What does that have to do with anything? Well, if you take
> one dialect of a particular language, they may indeed have numbers up
> to "ten". You take another dialect and they may also have numbers up
> to "ten".
>
> But what if the two dialects of that language have different number
> sets? What if the higher numbers differ in the two dialects? This is
> what we'd expect since higher numbers would tend to be replaced more
> often than lower ones, particularly in a neolithic environment where
> we have nothing but hunter-gatherer bands roaming the wilderness for
> good hunting grounds. All the speakers of a particular language
> aren't going to band together, have a meeting and decide how to say
> 'eight' but that doesn't mean that they didn't have their own local
> word.
>
> So, now let's expand this thought experiment.
>
> What if the two dialects both contribute to the development of a
> proto-language that us modernday people are trying to reconstruct?
> We all should know by now that proto-languages are abstract
> representations of the real language. The _real_ protolanguage, such
> as the 'real IE', would not have been a single, homogeneous language.
> Rather, the true protolanguage would be a collection of interrelated
> dialects all contributing to form what we call things like 'Proto-IE'
> or 'Proto-Uralic'.
>
> Now, back to Uralic itself. Understanding the above fully means that
> we understand that Uralic is not a single language and never was. It's
> a conglomeration of dialects, ever merging, fracturing and remerging.
> One can still have number systems from one to ten in these neolithic
> languages without them ever being reconstructable in the artificial
> construct we call 'protolanguage' simply because there may not have
> been consensus amongst the neighbouring dialects on what 'seven',
> 'eight', 'nine' or 'ten' should be.
>
>
> = gLeN
> open your mind

I agree, absolutely. Also in order not to waste time and jam this list with
more or less irrelevant topics, I created a small table in MS Excel, adopted
from the book (by Vaclav Blazek) I had mentioned so many times, listing
possible numeral cognates among IE, Uralic, Yukaghir, Dravidian, Nivx and
other language groups. I am willing to send it to those who are interested,
but only for personal purposes, as we don't want to violate any author laws,
do we? - take it as a quotation, please.

Just send me an empty e-mail letter with "table Numerals" in the subject,
ok?

Petusek