tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post8633955507108106204..comments2024-03-23T01:31:13.502+01:00Comments on Jabal al-Lughat: Why people say silly things about historical linguisticsLameen Souag الأمين سواقhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00773164776222840428noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-52827808946602248812007-05-29T23:15:00.000+02:002007-05-29T23:15:00.000+02:00I can't believe I just laughed out loud at "sequit...I can't believe I just laughed out loud at "sequitissimur", but I did. Dicendissimum erat.Lameen Souag الأمين سواقhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00773164776222840428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-16259703957058369912007-05-29T21:57:00.000+02:002007-05-29T21:57:00.000+02:00Alas, there is a smooth scale from Romance (obviou...Alas, there is a smooth scale from Romance (obvious) to Indo-European (well-established but not obvious) to Altaic (plausible but not firmly established) to Nostratic (shaky) to Proto-World (nonsense). <BR/><BR/>Expecting there to be specific terminology for this range of uncertainty is not really reasonable; it would just cause a secondary battle over terminology: "It's a family! No, it's a only phylum! (Non sequitur! De contrario, sequitissimur!)"John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-31530167185586549802007-05-28T14:36:00.000+02:002007-05-28T14:36:00.000+02:00Yes, I frequently point out to people that Latin i...Yes, I frequently point out to people that Latin is not dead, it's still being spoken (as French, Italian, etc.). The family metaphor is unfortunate, but I guess it's here to stay. (Another problem, as marie-lucie points out in a comment on my Songhai/Dogon post, is that "family" can refer either to an obvious grouping like the Romance languages or a highly dubious suggestion like Nostratic.)Languagehathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13285708503881129380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-42490611857578339532007-05-27T23:46:00.000+02:002007-05-27T23:46:00.000+02:00Amen. Indeed, Darwin explicitly used the family t...Amen. Indeed, Darwin explicitly used the family tree of historical linguistics as a metaphor for his proposed species tree that showed all organisms as descending from a common ancestor and ramifying.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.com