I am sorry, but what you are saying appears to me to lie somewhere
between the world of mythology and the realm of dream-work. Do you
have even the remotest idea how people spoke "when they first moved
out of Africa"? Are you sure they were actually "people" like us?
In any event, language developed spontaneously and by agreement (no
books nor schools) by "simple" people and hence "primitive" languages
like Hebrew must have (or have had) a very simple logical inner
structure. In my opinion Hebrew is basically a primeval language that
has retained this fundamental "grammar": word = root + identifiers
(personal pronouns). The identifiers were the sounds I and U.
There is, and there can't be, anything "deeper".
Isaac Fried, Boston university
On Nov 18, 2010, at 10:51 AM, Arnaud Fournet wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: Isaac Fried
To: Arnaud Fournet
Cc: Pere Porta ; Hebrew List
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2010 4:38 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Vav Nun Suffix
How deep is "much, much deeper level than Hebrew"? Very deep. Very,
very deep. Very, very, very deep? Any estimates?
Isaac Fried, Boston university
***
Possibly at least as old as the language people spoke when they
first moved out of Africa.
In fact your analysis is not far from pure glottogony.
So far I've never studied sub-saharian languages.
Anyway it makes sense to reanalyze certain affixal morphemes as
"degraded" pronouns.
For example #m- instrumental seems to have a clear connections with
a number of pronouns like ma "what"
But at the same time, how do we establish that this is not just a
chance coincidence?
Nearly all consonants are the signifier of pronouns in a worldwide
perspective.
Chance coincidences can never be entirely discarded as a possible
"explanation".
Arnaud Fournet
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