There are 2 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European? From: Jörg Rhiemeier 1b. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European? From: George Corley Messages ________________________________________________________________________ 1a. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European? Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de Date: Wed Jun 5, 2013 7:07 am ((PDT)) Hallo conlangers! On Wednesday 05 June 2013 01:26:09 Leonardo Castro wrote: > 2013/6/4 Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com>: > > On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 7:09 PM, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Can a conlang be classified into the conventional natlang families? > > > > There's been some discussion of this here or on AUXLANG in the past. > > The consensus seems to be that "Indo-European" is a *genetic* term, > > and only languages *descended* from proto-IE are Indo-European in the > > strict sense. Conlangs, however much vocabulary they borrow from a > > given natlang or group of natlangs, aren't descended from it in the > > way natural daughter languages are. Yes. It was here, some time last year. "Indo-European" is defined by descent from a common ancestor through an unbroken continuity of speakers. That way, conlangs can never be Indo-European. With diachronic conlangs such as Brithenig, which have a *fictional* diachronic development, one can at least say that they are *fictional* Indo-European languages, the same way, say, Sherlock Holmes is a fictional human being, but the qualification _fictional_ must never be omitted (except in *intrafictional* texts: if someone was to write _The Languages of Kemr_ from an Ill Bethisad-internal vantage point, that text would call Brithenig a "Romance language"). But languages such as Esperanto that draw their vocabulary from various Indo-European languages are not even fictional IE languages. There is nothing "fictional" about Esperanto. Not even pidgins and creole languages based on IE languages are classified as Indo-European by mainstream linguists! > Interesting! I have heard some people arguing that families are > defined by syntax solely, but I think the idea of genetic term is > better. The notion of defining families "by syntax solely" is now considered fallacious. That is not a language *family* but a language *type*. The idea of defining Indo-European by syntactic features dates back to the late, unlamented Nikolai Marr and has always been considered pseudoscience in the free world. (Marr entertained a pseudo-Marxist stadial theory. According to that theory, primitive classless societies spoke agglutinating ergative languages, of which examples still survive in Basque and in Caucasian languages. The development of a class society would usher in a shift to fusional accusative language structures, and it was this what according to Marr defined Indo-European. Of course, this is utter bullshit, but it was the state doctrine in linguistics in the USSR from ca. 1930 to 1950, and western historical linguistics was forbidden.) > I remember Richard Dawkins saying something similar while > discussing alternative proposals of Biological Taxonomy... I don't know what Dawkins has said, but creationists define biological taxonomy in such ways, and I can guess how vitriolically Dawkins rejects this. > BTW, my new conlang have a lot of false cognates with natlangs: > "mont-" for "mount", "kiel-" for "language" (Finnish), "kamp" for > "field" and "huas-" for "house" (Quechua or English)... > > But all of them are just coincidences... ;-) Isn't there a language in > a distant planet that is exactly the same as English by pure > coincidence? Very unlikely, but not *impossible*. > > And just judging by resemblance to Indo-European languages, Esperanto > > is IE in vocabulary, and to a large extent in syntax, but arguably not > > so much in morphology. Yes. The morphology of Esperanto has little in common with Indo-European. It is agglutinating without even the slightest trace of ablaut, and only a few morphemes are vaguely similar to their IE counterparts. (In this regard, Esperanto is more like Uralic or Etruscan.) -- ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html "Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1 Messages in this topic (19) ________________________________________________________________________ 1b. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European? Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com Date: Wed Jun 5, 2013 7:26 am ((PDT)) On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:06 AM, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhieme...@web.de>wrote: > Hallo conlangers! > > On Wednesday 05 June 2013 01:26:09 Leonardo Castro wrote: > > > BTW, my new conlang have a lot of false cognates with natlangs: > > "mont-" for "mount", "kiel-" for "language" (Finnish), "kamp" for > > "field" and "huas-" for "house" (Quechua or English)... > > > > But all of them are just coincidences... ;-) Isn't there a language in > > a distant planet that is exactly the same as English by pure > > coincidence? > > Very unlikely, but not *impossible*. If we assume an infinite universe, then there are, in fact, infinite such coincidences. But the odds of such a thing occurring are such that in order to have a good chance of finding such a planet, we would probably have to travel further than any technology will ever be able to take us -- likely several times beyond the visible portion of the universe. Messages in this topic (19) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/ <*> Your email settings: Digest Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: conlang-nor...@yahoogroups.com conlang-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: conlang-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------