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
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1a. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected]
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 <[email protected]>:
> > On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 7:09 PM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>
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)
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1b. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Wed Jun 5, 2013 7:26 am ((PDT))
On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:06 AM, Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]>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)
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