Re: Imperialism as the source of new geographical knowledge

At 5:42:07 PM on Friday, May 27, 2011, Torsten wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "t0lgsoo1"
> <guestuser.0x9357@...> wrote:

[...]

>> Much more interesting might be Aromanian, since it
>> contains whole lotta linguistic (phonetic and lexical)
>> stuff that is in accordance with various equivalents that
>> once also existed in Northern Romanian ("Dacoromanian"),
>> and others that are still alive and kicking in Romanian
>> subdialects too (and absent in the variety of standard,
>> official Romanian).

> It is very common in the common conception of languages
> outside of linguistic circles to ascribe great
> conservatism to minor and isolated dialects,

Actually, the exact opposite is true. Peripheral
conservatism was a discovery of dialectologists, not a
common conception of laymen. It's often overstated, but
that's a separate issue.

> but they rarely have any factual basis, and that is the
> case here too with Aromanian etc.

[...]

>>> Okay, you have no evidence other than the fact that
>>> other proposals are being taught at universities.

>> I don't have the time to prepare appropriate texts for
>> you.

> Well shut up then.

Why? So that you can continue to pretend that the
counter-evidence doesn't exist?

>> But it suffices to underline to you the fact that
>> Istroromanian is no archaic Romanian, it went through the
>> same transformations as did Romanian (Dacoromanian).
>> Aromanian has some features that really seem more archaic
>> than Istroromanian and Dacoromanian (or at least it is
>> more conservative as far as some developments are
>> concerned).

> That would just show that Istro-Romanian and Daco-Romanian
> made up one trading community apart from the other
> Romanian dialects.

It shows nothing of the kind; that's merely one possibility.

[...]

>>> That is a restatement of your belief. Ignored.

>> This is not my belief: this is what's been taught and
>> stated based on sound judgment.

> On no evidence, you mean.

<splork!!>

Prima facie evidence of crackpottery. If you really believe
that, you're an ass.

[...]

>> Show me the work of an author who has stated (and is
>> being taken seriously by the sc. community) that at least
>> one of the Proto-Neo-Romance languages existed between AD
>> 0-500 or earlier (when there was only Latin and its
>> dialectal kinship).

> I make my own proposals, I don't regurgitate other
> people's. If I have nothing new to contribute, I shut up.

A post is not a contribution merely because it contains a
novel proposal.

>>> Of course they do. Those theories and laws are a
>>> description of fact, but they may equally well be
>>> understood as a description of a regular slow
>>> development of a single language as as a description of
>>> the development from a language into a creole based on
>>> that language.

>> Yes, but that "creole" thing was STILL Latin!

> A creole based on some language is not that language and a
> Latin-based creole is not Latin. You have no clue what you
> are talking about.

Unless, as the quotation marks suggest, he's simply denying
that there could have been such a creole. If so, I'm
inclined to agree with him. Both abrupt creolization and
pidginization followed by creolization, unlike normal
language change, entail breaks in transmission, and it would
be remarkable indeed if the result were indistinguishable
from an unbroken line of development.

>> If I'd learn Danish and then communicate with you in some
>> sort of... Pidgin-Danish, it would be Danish, and not a
>> new thingamagig language.

> Pidgins are created on the spur of the moment and are not
> really languages, unlike creoles.

You have no clue what you are talking about.

[...]

>> Learn communication via email!

> No, you learn some goddam manners and academic decorum!!

At best this is the pot calling the kettle black, especially
where manners are concerned. I sometimes with that George
would snip a little less of the *immediate* context -- I'd
rather not to have to go to the web site when my memory of
the conversation is fuzzy -- but I certainly prefer his
style to the extreme opposite.

> Your debating style of commenting on half sentences before
> you have read even to the next full stop with wild rants
> which show you have misunderstood the half sentence to
> mean something else is particular to you and to no one
> else.

I've seen very few examples of this. Usually when you've
claimed to have been misunderstood, I've either shared the
misunderstanding or thought that you failed to understand
some consequence of what you'd written.

[...]

>> The "bastardization" and pidginization of Latin in order
>> to become French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan,
>> Rumansh, Romanian, Sardinian, Corsican etc. happened only
>> because of the decay of Latin in the aftermath of the ...
>> implosion of "Romania"!

> Restatement of belief ... Ignored.

Ignorance comes naturally, eh?

>> The vast population didn't have FOR CENTURIES any
>> possibility to be corrected by a school system. Only
>> extreme few people (clergy, monks) dealt with classical
>> Latin. So that regional variants of Kaputt-Latin differed
>> so grievously that in the 8th-9th centuries some scholars
>> complained (in vain: it was too late) of the adulteration
>> of regional "Latin" variants, which by then were those
>> Proto-French, Proto-Italian, Proto-etc.

> Standard theory, which we all know.

Try learning WHY it's the standard theory. Until you show
some evidence of more than rote knowledge, you can expect to
be considered ignorant of it, because for scholarly purposes
you are.

[...]

>> So, show me how you manage to convince the community you
>> are right and the community has been for many decades
>> wrong.

> No.

In other words, you're an unserious dilettante.

[...]

>>> As I already said, the creation of a creole is not
>>> dependent on whether the adopting people switches
>>> voluntarily or under duress.

>> Do not repeat "definitions" ad nauseam!

> Your nausea over linguistic definitions is not relevant
> to the question of their validity.

True. But your assertion is nevertheless of questionable
validity. The attested case that seems most closely to
match the situation that you're envisioning is that of
Afrikaans, which is not a creole, though its development as
a distinct language was certainly heavily influenced by
imperfect learning of Dutch as a second language [Thomason &
Kaufman, Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic
Linguistics, 251-6].

Brian