Konu: Re: [historical_linguistics] Digest Number 24
More on Polat Kaya:
Polat Kaya continues to give no
evidence for his claims; he only makes assertions. He has NOT shown
that Turkish is of vast antiquity, and he has NOT demonstrated his specific
etymologies. Even the case of BILGAMESH, which some seem inclined to
accept, remains only a claim. No reason has been given for accepting
these analyses (quite the opposite of his claim that no one can dispute
them). I cannot imagine how he conceives of what counts as good
evidence, but I assure him and everyone that no one trained in this
discipline would share his conception. As long as he thinks in this
way, he is doomed to remain on the fringe.
In addition, he continues
to treat Genesis as if it were a reliable historical document. This is
unjustifiable.
Contrary to what Polat Kaya says, I HAVE provided criteria
which his analysis needs to meet (including comparison with the ideas of
other such writers). If he is unwilling to apply these criteria but
cannot rebut them (and so far he has not rebutted them), his position is
hopeless. If he is unable to understand how they would apply, I am
willing to work through a few specific cases with him. But I have
already tried to discuss one case with him, that of ACCELERATE, and in this
case he immediately shifted from one untenable analysis to another, while
still not addressing the criteria. In fact, what I have said would
already be clear to anyone who knew enough to make worthwhile novel
proposals in this area. And, after all, it is Polat Kaya who is making
the novel proposals and it is his responsibility to uphold them against
well-supported established positions. He has altogether failed to
engage with this enterprise. (As a matter of fact, as I have pointed
out, analyses such as his, involving all those loose parallels and all that
'anagrammatisation' could not possibly be justified without concrete
historical evidence; but, if - as it appears - he does not understand this
point, he might at least try! See also Mark Hubey's
comments.)
ENCRYPT is NOT an 'anagram' of Greek KRYPTEIN; it is derived
from it by well-understood non-anagrammatic processes, and in this case the
process is largely on record. The initial EN- has nothing to do with
the Greek infinitive ending -EIN. Polat Kaya is again revealing that
he knows too little about Greek, at least, to say anything worthwhile about
it. He is merely embarrassing himself here.
Further, as
usual, no evidence is given for the alleged Turkish etymology, or for any
deliberate 'anagrammatising'. (Even where we do not know an etymology,
this does not mean that such proposals are reasonable.)
Only someone
determined to see Turkish roots here would make such proposals - just as
some other writers see THEIR native language everywhere. It is
disingenuous of Polat Kaya to deny bias. But, even if he were not
biased, his analyses would still not hold up.
I stand by everything I
have said, and I am confident that other linguists will agree with me.
Those who do not know the subject should (provisionally) accept this
judgment and should ignore Polat Kaya.
I have given Polat Kaya's material
a lot more attention than it deserves, and unless he says something of
genuine interest I will stop here.
Please circulate this to relevant
groups. Thanks.
Mark Newbrook
PS: The case of Bulgarian
(with Macedonian) is interesting but needs to be treated with care; it is
clearly something of a 'mixed' language but equally clearly it is agreed
that its core is mainly Slavic.