Re: Re[5]: [tied] Re: PIE-Arabic Correspondences (was Brugmann's Law

----- Original Message -----

From: Brian M. Scott

To: fournet.arnaud

Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 9:17 PM

Subject: Re[5]: [tied] Re: PIE-Arabic Correspondences (was Brugmann's Law)

At 6:14:28 AM on Sunday, January 20, 2008, fournet.arnaud
wrote:

[...]

> But Ruhlen's "success" is also linked with the fact that
> "serious" linguists have left the domain unexplored
> because of that 10 000-years time-limit, which is just a
> complete stupidity. If you say it 's not feasible
> scientifically, do not be surprised if dumbs, crack-pots,
> idiots and crooks invade the area.

Piotr has already pointed out that the 10,000-year time
limit is a straw man, and that serious historical linguists
have attempted long-range work. I would add that it is none
the less clear that evidence of linguistic relationships
will eventually be swamped by the noise introduced by random
changes. And on the evidence to date, this noise
accumulates more than fast enough to make any attempt to
reconstruct a 'proto-world' language an exercise in
crackpottery. Even just securely identifying a few odd
traces of one is highly unlikely: even if such traces still
exist, odds are that it's impossible to distinguish them
from false positives.

Brian

===================

I have pondered issues of methods for long,

What you are expressing is just a "can't be done" dogma.

 

The first step when you want to make "serious" macro-comparison

is to make an assessment of which languages can be relied on

and what they can bring.

And you also have to make an assessment of how reliable each proto-language is,

and what kind of adjustments are necessary.

In order to maximize chances of success,

you have to rely on languages that display the highest skelettal stability.

Arabic *alone* independently of PAA is highly stable,

*BUT* the content of the skeletton is a bit unstable.

When you have an Arabic cognate, you know how many consonants there are.

And you can't deny this :

It's not a matter of *How long ago* : this language is stable.

Chinese is also valuable because changes are linearly predictible

When you have the right keys, there is no surprise.

 

The "can't be done" dogma is **useless**

Think positive

Look at the right languages

Make comparisons between the right languages.

That's what it's about.

Whining does not amount to a "theory".

It's just the pain of incompetence.

 

Arnaud