There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: the LCC5 relay is up
From: Anthony Miles
2a. "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
From: Eric Christopherson
2b. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
From: Matthew Boutilier
2c. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
From: Adam Walker
2d. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
From: Billy J.B.
2e. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
From: Krista D. Casada
2f. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
From: Allison Swenson
2g. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
From: Krista D. Casada
2h. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
From: Matthew Turnbull
2i. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
From: Gary Shannon
2j. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
From: Patrick Dunn
2k. (no subject)
From: [email protected]
2l. (no subject)
From: Cosman246
3a. Re: natlang precedent?? vcc > v:c
From: Matthew Boutilier
4. Teonaht grammar?
From: H. S. Teoh
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: the LCC5 relay is up
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 7:47 am ((PDT))
Last night, after I returned from Finance class, I wrote up a Siye version of
the LCC5 relay original text (and actually, the Guild of Scholars would only
censure, not prohibit, a dada text as long as it was grammatical). I wrote this
without using relative clauses, because relative clauses are in the workshop. I
have not glossed it, but the slightly translationese translation highlights
some of the peculiarities of the translation. Simayamka society is weakly
matriarchal, there are no beast of burden on Mars, and Martian moons aren't
round.
yenaki nimuke laye lu tumsum:
Sutuma lusu, layeke leme! Pomi mekem yokono pemesum pesupusumam lusu lupatelone
pempetu [1] pesuputuma. Petupusunuya le petu yenaki nimulo elesipuma: umna
pitake yetamlotu tumhisiputammam pe itu ekiwa leme epenuputekatumu. Pitake
yetamlo emupapusumyammuya, iloya pitake lemelo yilimposulosumma. Lom lu
Atammeme peyapu ekimpukimakem, yeke kiwa nukepalo [2] epeliputekaname. Lom yeke
kiwa nukepalo yetutupusumnama [3] satutulopusumnamaki. Nemeku upepo tum yeke
kiwa peyame ipeneputekakumu [3]. Upepo me umheya pemepu ikimpukima. Iya imaka
[4] peme ekopumum pitake pemelo iyimakapumum laye lu pemelo iyimakapumu.
Upepoka ikane emkim eya ewikakima. Upepo yeke kiwa peyameme ipekopumatusum, sa
peluluwepumsunam sa pelelipusumnumasu. Me elesipuma, layeke leme: sa
pelenupunuma. Yeke kiwa peyame osune emkim nimupu ikimpukima. Yeke melo
ipeliputekaname. Yeke kiwa peyamelosum saki uka emutukasumsunam nimuku
ikimpuloma. Supusuma, layeke leme! Supusumam lopunama!
A few good words from a mother
Come here, my daughter. This day you go away from your family and you go to a
place past the hills. Because you have not gone [yet], I will speak good words
to you. “A person habitually speaks to stone beasts and you should not give
your heart to him. Because someone cannot cook stone beasts, they will frighten
your beasts. When the moon of the land of Adam t is a circle, you should eat
the long red fruits. The moon will strength the long red fruits; as a result,
they will strengthen you. Lastly, you should under no circumstances touch a
tree with round red fruit. This tree is your enemy. It will not see your
'imaka' and will not 'imaka' your beasts and will not 'imaka' your foremothers.
All trees have evil inside all of them. If you look at a tree of red fruit, I
will find you and I will kill you. I say this: I will destroy you. Round red
fruit is good in the mouth. You should eat this fruit. Someone has caused water
to go from the round red fruits and they are great. Go forth, my daughter! Go
forth, and cry out like a beast!”
[1] Allative postpositions use -tu DAT-BEN not -su DAT-ALL on the model of
'emtu', 'inside, guts'
[2] Yes, carrots and other roots are 'fruit'
[3] Roots are inanimate 'fruit', plums are animate 'fruit'. Maybe it's got
something to do with being underground.
[4] 'imaka' is the cardinal societal virtue, a combination of 'face' and
'personal integrity'.
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 9:54 am ((PDT))
An evolutionary biologist, Mark Pagel, has done some analysis to arrive at 23
words dating back 15,000 years ago to a "superlanguage" which apparently gave
rise to IE as well as Uralic, Altaic, etc. While I was pleased Merrit Ruhlen's
name didn't show up in the article, I'm skeptical about non-linguists making
this sort of claim; and the article itself is full of ambiguities (e.g. whether
this superlanguage was a regular old language, or some sort of ancient auxlang;
plus, check out the extent of IE on the language family map!) and seems to lack
awareness that this same sort of thing has been done many times. Still, his
actual work might be fairly interesting.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320754/The-ice-age-superlanguage-Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-ago.html
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 10:21 am ((PDT))
Here's another version:
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/05/english-may-have-retained-words-.html
because every good linguist knows that *eau* can be traced back to PIE *wódr̥
(or *wata, for that matter).
Still, though, this application of half-life math to historical linguistics
is pretty interesting; there's probably something there. But leave the
reconstructing to the experts, please.
matt
On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Eric Christopherson <[email protected]>wrote:
> An evolutionary biologist, Mark Pagel, has done some analysis to arrive at
> 23 words dating back 15,000 years ago to a "superlanguage" which apparently
> gave rise to IE as well as Uralic, Altaic, etc. While I was pleased Merrit
> Ruhlen's name didn't show up in the article, I'm skeptical about
> non-linguists making this sort of claim; and the article itself is full of
> ambiguities (e.g. whether this superlanguage was a regular old language, or
> some sort of ancient auxlang; plus, check out the extent of IE on the
> language family map!) and seems to lack awareness that this same sort of
> thing has been done many times. Still, his actual work might be fairly
> interesting.
>
>
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320754/The-ice-age-superlanguage-Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-ago.html
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 11:07 am ((PDT))
Just don't read the comments unless you want to start bleeding from your
ears.
Adam
On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Eric Christopherson <[email protected]>wrote:
> An evolutionary biologist, Mark Pagel, has done some analysis to arrive at
> 23 words dating back 15,000 years ago to a "superlanguage" which apparently
> gave rise to IE as well as Uralic, Altaic, etc. While I was pleased Merrit
> Ruhlen's name didn't show up in the article, I'm skeptical about
> non-linguists making this sort of claim; and the article itself is full of
> ambiguities (e.g. whether this superlanguage was a regular old language, or
> some sort of ancient auxlang; plus, check out the extent of IE on the
> language family map!) and seems to lack awareness that this same sort of
> thing has been done many times. Still, his actual work might be fairly
> interesting.
>
>
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320754/The-ice-age-superlanguage-Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-ago.html
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
Posted by: "Billy J.B." [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 11:09 am ((PDT))
I, sadly, did.
(paraphrasing): Hey guise, Sanskrit is totally /the/ Ursprach 'cause it's
way older than Modern English!
On 7 May 2013 20:07, Adam Walker <[email protected]> wrote:
> Just don't read the comments unless you want to start bleeding from your
> ears.
>
> Adam
>
> On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Eric Christopherson <[email protected]
> >wrote:
>
> > An evolutionary biologist, Mark Pagel, has done some analysis to arrive
> at
> > 23 words dating back 15,000 years ago to a "superlanguage" which
> apparently
> > gave rise to IE as well as Uralic, Altaic, etc. While I was pleased
> Merrit
> > Ruhlen's name didn't show up in the article, I'm skeptical about
> > non-linguists making this sort of claim; and the article itself is full
> of
> > ambiguities (e.g. whether this superlanguage was a regular old language,
> or
> > some sort of ancient auxlang; plus, check out the extent of IE on the
> > language family map!) and seems to lack awareness that this same sort of
> > thing has been done many times. Still, his actual work might be fairly
> > interesting.
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320754/The-ice-age-superlanguage-Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-ago.html
>
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
2e. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
Posted by: "Krista D. Casada" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 11:13 am ((PDT))
Or laughing out loud. At work. In the library.
Krista
________________________________________
From: Constructed Languages List [[email protected]] on behalf of Adam
Walker [[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 1:07 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
Just don't read the comments unless you want to start bleeding from your
ears.
Adam
On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Eric Christopherson <[email protected]>wrote:
> An evolutionary biologist, Mark Pagel, has done some analysis to arrive at
> 23 words dating back 15,000 years ago to a "superlanguage" which apparently
> gave rise to IE as well as Uralic, Altaic, etc. While I was pleased Merrit
> Ruhlen's name didn't show up in the article, I'm skeptical about
> non-linguists making this sort of claim; and the article itself is full of
> ambiguities (e.g. whether this superlanguage was a regular old language, or
> some sort of ancient auxlang; plus, check out the extent of IE on the
> language family map!) and seems to lack awareness that this same sort of
> thing has been done many times. Still, his actual work might be fairly
> interesting.
>
>
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320754/The-ice-age-superlanguage-Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-ago.html
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
Posted by: "Allison Swenson" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 11:20 am ((PDT))
I blame everyone on this list for forever ruining any linguistics-related
journalism for me... and especially uninformed comments on such topics.
Before I came here, I was a nice, naive girl who believed all the usual
nonsense about language "purity" and "right" and "wrong" definitions and so
on...
Life is more interesting these days, but sadly it often leads me down the
dangerous path of trying to correct people on the Internet, which has never
gotten anyone anywhere.
--Allison Swenson
On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 2:13 PM, Krista D. Casada <[email protected]> wrote:
> Or laughing out loud. At work. In the library.
>
> Krista
> ________________________________________
> From: Constructed Languages List [[email protected]] on behalf
> of Adam Walker [[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 1:07 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its
> finest
>
> Just don't read the comments unless you want to start bleeding from your
> ears.
>
> Adam
>
> On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Eric Christopherson <[email protected]
> >wrote:
>
> > An evolutionary biologist, Mark Pagel, has done some analysis to arrive
> at
> > 23 words dating back 15,000 years ago to a "superlanguage" which
> apparently
> > gave rise to IE as well as Uralic, Altaic, etc. While I was pleased
> Merrit
> > Ruhlen's name didn't show up in the article, I'm skeptical about
> > non-linguists making this sort of claim; and the article itself is full
> of
> > ambiguities (e.g. whether this superlanguage was a regular old language,
> or
> > some sort of ancient auxlang; plus, check out the extent of IE on the
> > language family map!) and seems to lack awareness that this same sort of
> > thing has been done many times. Still, his actual work might be fairly
> > interesting.
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320754/The-ice-age-superlanguage-Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-ago.html
>
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
2g. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
Posted by: "Krista D. Casada" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 11:23 am ((PDT))
It's okay, Allison. I still believe some of that stuff.
Krista
________________________________________
From: Constructed Languages List [[email protected]] on behalf of
Allison Swenson [[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 1:20 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
I blame everyone on this list for forever ruining any linguistics-related
journalism for me... and especially uninformed comments on such topics.
Before I came here, I was a nice, naive girl who believed all the usual
nonsense about language "purity" and "right" and "wrong" definitions and so
on...
Life is more interesting these days, but sadly it often leads me down the
dangerous path of trying to correct people on the Internet, which has never
gotten anyone anywhere.
--Allison Swenson
On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 2:13 PM, Krista D. Casada <[email protected]> wrote:
> Or laughing out loud. At work. In the library.
>
> Krista
> ________________________________________
> From: Constructed Languages List [[email protected]] on behalf
> of Adam Walker [[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 1:07 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its
> finest
>
> Just don't read the comments unless you want to start bleeding from your
> ears.
>
> Adam
>
> On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Eric Christopherson <[email protected]
> >wrote:
>
> > An evolutionary biologist, Mark Pagel, has done some analysis to arrive
> at
> > 23 words dating back 15,000 years ago to a "superlanguage" which
> apparently
> > gave rise to IE as well as Uralic, Altaic, etc. While I was pleased
> Merrit
> > Ruhlen's name didn't show up in the article, I'm skeptical about
> > non-linguists making this sort of claim; and the article itself is full
> of
> > ambiguities (e.g. whether this superlanguage was a regular old language,
> or
> > some sort of ancient auxlang; plus, check out the extent of IE on the
> > language family map!) and seems to lack awareness that this same sort of
> > thing has been done many times. Still, his actual work might be fairly
> > interesting.
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320754/The-ice-age-superlanguage-Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-ago.html
>
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
2h. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
Posted by: "Matthew Turnbull" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 11:47 am ((PDT))
I saw this on Reddit and was struck by its familiarity. Does anyone know
where the study was published? Reading journalistic interpretations can be
uninformative more often than not.
On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Eric Christopherson <[email protected]>wrote:
> An evolutionary biologist, Mark Pagel, has done some analysis to arrive at
> 23 words dating back 15,000 years ago to a "superlanguage" which apparently
> gave rise to IE as well as Uralic, Altaic, etc. While I was pleased Merrit
> Ruhlen's name didn't show up in the article, I'm skeptical about
> non-linguists making this sort of claim; and the article itself is full of
> ambiguities (e.g. whether this superlanguage was a regular old language, or
> some sort of ancient auxlang; plus, check out the extent of IE on the
> language family map!) and seems to lack awareness that this same sort of
> thing has been done many times. Still, his actual work might be fairly
> interesting.
>
>
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320754/The-ice-age-superlanguage-Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-ago.html
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
2i. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 11:54 am ((PDT))
I worked for a company that got a front page story in the local paper and
virtually nothing the reporter wrote was correct. I worked as a software
engineer for almost fifty years and almost every news story I've every read
about my field of expertise has had major factual errors. My son-in-law is
a research scientist in the medical field and he tells me virtually every
media story in his field gets the information mostly wrong, or even
completely wrong.
I long ago stopped believing ANYTHING I read in the media.
Every year since the 1960's computers that are as smart as humans are only
ten years in the future. It's always been "ten years in the future", and it
probably will always be "ten years in the future". The average person has
no concept whatsoever what a monumentally difficult problem that is, and we
may never have computers as smart as humans. On the other hand, we already
have pocket calculators that are smarter than journalists.
--gary
On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Allison Swenson <[email protected]> wrote:
> I blame everyone on this list for forever ruining any linguistics-related
> journalism for me... and especially uninformed comments on such topics.
> Before I came here, I was a nice, naive girl who believed all the usual
> nonsense about language "purity" and "right" and "wrong" definitions and so
> on...
>
> Life is more interesting these days, but sadly it often leads me down the
> dangerous path of trying to correct people on the Internet, which has never
> gotten anyone anywhere.
>
> --Allison Swenson
>
> On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 2:13 PM, Krista D. Casada <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Or laughing out loud. At work. In the library.
> >
> > Krista
> > ________________________________________
> > From: Constructed Languages List [[email protected]] on behalf
> > of Adam Walker [[email protected]]
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 1:07 PM
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its
> > finest
> >
> > Just don't read the comments unless you want to start bleeding from your
> > ears.
> >
> > Adam
> >
> > On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Eric Christopherson <[email protected]
> > >wrote:
> >
> > > An evolutionary biologist, Mark Pagel, has done some analysis to arrive
> > at
> > > 23 words dating back 15,000 years ago to a "superlanguage" which
> > apparently
> > > gave rise to IE as well as Uralic, Altaic, etc. While I was pleased
> > Merrit
> > > Ruhlen's name didn't show up in the article, I'm skeptical about
> > > non-linguists making this sort of claim; and the article itself is full
> > of
> > > ambiguities (e.g. whether this superlanguage was a regular old
> language,
> > or
> > > some sort of ancient auxlang; plus, check out the extent of IE on the
> > > language family map!) and seems to lack awareness that this same sort
> of
> > > thing has been done many times. Still, his actual work might be fairly
> > > interesting.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320754/The-ice-age-superlanguage-Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-ago.html
> >
>
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
2j. Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its finest
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 11:55 am ((PDT))
For a while, I used to bemoan the state of linguistics journalism, as often
being wrong, misleading, and sometimes hilarious naive. Then I realized --
wait, I know about linguistics. I don't know much about physics, or
medicine, or chemistry. Oh . . . bugger . . .
It's all wrong. All of it. Almost all the time.
That's the safest assumption.
On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 1:54 PM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> I worked for a company that got a front page story in the local paper and
> virtually nothing the reporter wrote was correct. I worked as a software
> engineer for almost fifty years and almost every news story I've every read
> about my field of expertise has had major factual errors. My son-in-law is
> a research scientist in the medical field and he tells me virtually every
> media story in his field gets the information mostly wrong, or even
> completely wrong.
>
> I long ago stopped believing ANYTHING I read in the media.
>
> Every year since the 1960's computers that are as smart as humans are only
> ten years in the future. It's always been "ten years in the future", and it
> probably will always be "ten years in the future". The average person has
> no concept whatsoever what a monumentally difficult problem that is, and we
> may never have computers as smart as humans. On the other hand, we already
> have pocket calculators that are smarter than journalists.
>
> --gary
>
>
> On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Allison Swenson <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> > I blame everyone on this list for forever ruining any linguistics-related
> > journalism for me... and especially uninformed comments on such topics.
> > Before I came here, I was a nice, naive girl who believed all the usual
> > nonsense about language "purity" and "right" and "wrong" definitions and
> so
> > on...
> >
> > Life is more interesting these days, but sadly it often leads me down the
> > dangerous path of trying to correct people on the Internet, which has
> never
> > gotten anyone anywhere.
> >
> > --Allison Swenson
> >
> > On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 2:13 PM, Krista D. Casada <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >
> > > Or laughing out loud. At work. In the library.
> > >
> > > Krista
> > > ________________________________________
> > > From: Constructed Languages List [[email protected]] on
> behalf
> > > of Adam Walker [[email protected]]
> > > Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 1:07 PM
> > > To: [email protected]
> > > Subject: Re: "Ice age superlanguage" -- linguistics journalism at its
> > > finest
> > >
> > > Just don't read the comments unless you want to start bleeding from
> your
> > > ears.
> > >
> > > Adam
> > >
> > > On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Eric Christopherson <
> [email protected]
> > > >wrote:
> > >
> > > > An evolutionary biologist, Mark Pagel, has done some analysis to
> arrive
> > > at
> > > > 23 words dating back 15,000 years ago to a "superlanguage" which
> > > apparently
> > > > gave rise to IE as well as Uralic, Altaic, etc. While I was pleased
> > > Merrit
> > > > Ruhlen's name didn't show up in the article, I'm skeptical about
> > > > non-linguists making this sort of claim; and the article itself is
> full
> > > of
> > > > ambiguities (e.g. whether this superlanguage was a regular old
> > language,
> > > or
> > > > some sort of ancient auxlang; plus, check out the extent of IE on the
> > > > language family map!) and seems to lack awareness that this same sort
> > of
> > > > thing has been done many times. Still, his actual work might be
> fairly
> > > > interesting.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320754/The-ice-age-superlanguage-Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-ago.html
> > >
> >
>
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
2k. (no subject)
Posted by: [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 12:36 pm ((PDT))
I especially liked this comment:
"Welsh is actually a form of latin, left over from the time of the
Roman Empire."
--Ph. D.
"Krista D. Casada" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Or laughing out loud. At work. In the library.
>
> Krista
> ________________________________________
> Adam Walker [[email protected]] wrote:
>
> Just don't read the comments unless you want to start bleeding from your
> ears.
>
> Adam
>
> Eric Christopherson <[email protected]>wrote:
>
> > An evolutionary biologist, Mark Pagel, has done some analysis to arrive at
> > 23 words dating back 15,000 years ago to a "superlanguage" which apparently
> > gave rise to IE as well as Uralic, Altaic, etc. While I was pleased Merrit
> > Ruhlen's name didn't show up in the article, I'm skeptical about
> > non-linguists making this sort of claim; and the article itself is full of
> > ambiguities (e.g. whether this superlanguage was a regular old language, or
> > some sort of ancient auxlang; plus, check out the extent of IE on the
> > language family map!) and seems to lack awareness that this same sort of
> > thing has been done many times. Still, his actual work might be fairly
> > interesting.
> >
> >
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320754/The-ice-age-superlanguage-Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-ago.html
Messages in this topic (12)
________________________________________________________________________
2l. (no subject)
Posted by: "Cosman246" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 12:41 pm ((PDT))
Another one falls to the trap of Brithenig!
-Yash Tulsyan (yasht, cosman246)
http://cosman246.com
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this
would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to
enslave them." --Dune
"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal" -Emma Goldman
On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 12:36 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
> I especially liked this comment:
>
> "Welsh is actually a form of latin, left over from the time of the Roman
> Empire."
>
> --Ph. D.
>
> "Krista D. Casada" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
>
>> Or laughing out loud. At work. In the library.
>> Krista
>> ______________________________**__________
>> Adam Walker [[email protected]] wrote:
>>
>> Just don't read the comments unless you want to start bleeding from your
>> ears.
>> Adam
>>
>> Eric Christopherson <[email protected]>wrote:
>>
>> > An evolutionary biologist, Mark Pagel, has done some analysis to arrive
>> at
>> > 23 words dating back 15,000 years ago to a "superlanguage" which
>> apparently
>> > gave rise to IE as well as Uralic, Altaic, etc. While I was pleased
>> Merrit
>> > Ruhlen's name didn't show up in the article, I'm skeptical about
>> > non-linguists making this sort of claim; and the article itself is full
>> of
>> > ambiguities (e.g. whether this superlanguage was a regular old
>> language, or
>> > some sort of ancient auxlang; plus, check out the extent of IE on the
>> > language family map!) and seems to lack awareness that this same sort of
>> > thing has been done many times. Still, his actual work might be fairly
>> > interesting. >
>> > http://www.dailymail.co.uk/**sciencetech/article-2320754/**
>> The-ice-age-superlanguage-**Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-**ago.html<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320754/The-ice-age-superlanguage-Europeans-spoke-15-000-years-ago.html>
>>
>
Messages in this topic (12)
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3a. Re: natlang precedent?? vcc > v:c
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 10:43 am ((PDT))
> My notation was perhaps not all that clear.
> Scandinavian usually had lengthening of short vowels
> before short consonants, but sometimes -- in specific
> words -- it was the consonant which lengthened instead,
> e.g. in OSc /wika/ 'week' > Sw /v\ek:a/ although
> /v\e:ka/ (and /v\ik:a/) are also found in dialects. In
> some cases the divergent development prevented merger
> between related forms as when /wit/ 'intelligence,
> sanity' > /v\et:/ while /weit/ 'knows' > /v\e:t/ but of
> course there's no plan to it! The notaition with CC is
> customary because original long consonants and clusters
> pattern alike in preventing V lengthening and causing
> V: shortening -- except that both were sometimes
> sensitive to the presence of morpheme boundaries --
> usually enforced by related clusterless forms. Thus
> /reisti/ 'raised' > /re:ste/ rather than **/reste/.
> Actually vowel length in inherited Swedish words is
> entirely predictable from stress, coda weight and
> morpheme structure with some affixes inhibiting vowel
> shortening.
>
this is really interesting. my inner Neo-grammarian imagines that this was
originally dialectical differences, and then different things got
generalized in the standard? but it's good to know that *something* like
what i proposed exists somewhere.
>
> Vulgar Latin had similar form of syllable structure
> dependent vowel quantity shift: Latin contrastive vowel
> length was lost but in most of VL a stressed V not
> followed by a CC/C: was lengthened. Iberian Romance
> differs in that all stressed V were lengthened. Just
> like in Scandinavian and M. English lengthened [I] and
> [U] merged with [e] and [o] rather than with [i] and
> [u], except in Sardinia and, by Augustine's testimony,
> in Africa. In Balkan Romance only [U] > /u/.
aha, i always knew i'd find some use for Augustine.
> i could always do *bikki > *biki and then have open-syllable lengthening.
> but that would probably merge with *biki.
>
Why? It depends on in which order open syllable
> lengthening and CC simplification occur. This said the
> Scandinavian quantity shift was probably a *single*
> process which shoehorned all stressed syllables to be
> long, so that there were no short or overlong syllables
> anymore. If you are using some sound change applying
> software just ordwer open syllable lengthening before
> geminate shortening -- or have dialects doing it
> differently if you can't decide! :-)
>
yeah ... hah! dialects are another thing i'm sorting out. and, the thing
is, i normally wouldn't do open-syllable lengthening *at all* (at least in
my main daughter family); i'm just trying to avoid it, as i'm up to my ears
in long vowels as it is.
in case you're wondering, i've resolved to go back to my old friend *glottal
stop mobilè*:
*qiʔˈkā (probably *[qihˈkaː] > kɰīˈkā 'he/she drank'
*qiˈkā > kuˈkā 'they drank'
and *qī- would diphthongize to qia̯- (>kɰia̯) or something.
matt
Messages in this topic (7)
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4. Teonaht grammar?
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 7, 2013 12:42 pm ((PDT))
Does anyone know what happened to Sally Caves' online pages about
Teonaht? None of the links that show up in Google work: the old
frontiernet pages appear to have been removed, and the cavesdreaming
site (which seems to be a newer site?) shows up as an expired address
page from godaddy. What's going on? Where can I find the Teonaht
grammar?
T
--
Answer: Because it breaks the logical sequence of discussion.
Question: Why is top posting bad?
Messages in this topic (1)
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