Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[WeepingElf]

What age is that paper? Because that's batshit crazy.


JAL

https://www.academia.edu/43984902/Elami ... to_h_?sm=b

https://www.academia.edu/3801969/Etrusc ... n_Language found some more bullshit

There is also this. If you ask me, if the Etruscan words he compares to Anatolian languages are correctly interpreted at all (there are many uncertainties about the meanings of Etruscan words), they are loanwords, which, however, would require an origin of Etruscan in Asia Minor, and there is indeed the hypothesis that Etruscan descends from the language of Troy - which seems quite plausible (but uncertain) to me.

[jal]

https://www.academia.edu/3801969/Etrusc ... n_Language found some more bullshit

🤦‍♂️


JAL

[abahot]

What are people's thoughts on Austro-Tai? (Kra-Dai + Austronesian)

[Travis B.]

What are people's thoughts on Austro-Tai? (Kra-Dai + Austronesian)

One of the few hypothetical macro-families that doesn't seem dubious at all IMO.

[WeepingElf]

What are people's thoughts on Austro-Tai? (Kra-Dai + Austronesian)

I know too little about those languages to have an opinion

[Richard W]

What are people's thoughts on Austro-Tai? (Kra-Dai + Austronesian)

Is that now a sound name? If my memory serves me right, it has embraced Austric and at times Japanese.

I am deeply struck by Laurent Sagart's cautious concept of AAK (Austronesian Ancestor of Kadai), which is an admission that the affiliation might be hard to demonstrate. Tai in particular has massive waves of Chinese loans, and internally, the Kra family has a massive layer of Tai loans. (Ostapirat used tone correspondences to shift them out when reconstructing Proto-Kra.) I also note that AAK looks to be nested within Austronesian, seemingly part of the 'East Cost Linkage'. The non-Sinitic numerals seem to belong to that Austronesian grouping; one hopes they aren't just yet another layer of borrowing.

A report from East Cham suggests that when a sesquisyllabic language becomes monosyllabic, the merger of the two syllable initials can be quite irregular, which doesn't help. The reconstruction of C.CVX forms (reduced from Austronesian CVCVC) looks highly dependent on a few tiny languages (dialects?), so the scope for data corruption over time is immense.

[jal]

Which leads to an interesting question, viz. are there languages that because of massive loans can't be used in reconstructing language families?


JAL

[bradrn]

What are people's thoughts on Austro-Tai? (Kra-Dai + Austronesian)

It’s almost certainly true in some form. The Buyang evidence in particular looks very, very convincing.

I also note that AAK looks to be nested within Austronesian, seemingly part of the 'East Cost Linkage'. The non-Sinitic numerals seem to belong to that Austronesian grouping; one hopes they aren't just yet another layer of borrowing.

I remember reading a really excellent riposte demolishing that particular paper of Sagart’s. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find it again. (Possibly it was by Ross.)

[Brilliant-Resource14]

Forni: Hi guys! Basque is an Indo-European language. Here are my sound changes!! Please ignore the fact I skipped some in my etymologies. <izar> should really be *izel, but no it isn't!

[Richard W]

Forni: Hi guys! Basque is an Indo-European language. Here are my sound changes!! Please ignore the fact I skipped some in my etymologies. <izar> should really be *izel, but no it isn't!

His 'demonstration' actually got published in a proper journal. The editors thought its demolition would be helpfully educational, but things went off at half-cock and the result was embarrassment.

There now seems to be a strong feeling around that the Basques descend from yet another group of steppe nomads.

[WeepingElf]

Forni: Hi guys! Basque is an Indo-European language. Here are my sound changes!! Please ignore the fact I skipped some in my etymologies. <izar> should really be *izel, but no it isn't!

It is remotely possible that Proto-Basque *izar 'star' is a loanword from some unknown IE language which is also the origin of Celtic *îsarnom 'iron', which looks like a *-no- derivative from whatever *îsar- may be - perhaps a reflex of PIE *h₂ster- 'star'? After all, the metal was first known from meteorites. Alas, this is an ignotum per ignotius argument and thus not really useful (except for exploring it in a conlang, of course).

[bradrn]

There now seems to be a strong feeling around that the Basques descend from yet another group of steppe nomads.

Really?

[Travis B.]

There now seems to be a strong feeling around that the Basques descend from yet another group of steppe nomads.

Really?

There's Genetic origins, singularity, and heterogeneity of Basques.

[Richard W]

There now seems to be a strong feeling around that the Basques descend from yet another group of steppe nomads.

Really?

On digging, it looks as though the evidence for 'another group' is purely linguistic. Basque men are overwhelming of the S116 subclade of R1b, which is also common in France and the Celtic parts of the British Isles. I suppose this raises the possibility of children learning their mother's tongue rather than their father's.

[zompist]

There now seems to be a strong feeling around that the Basques descend from yet another group of steppe nomads.

Really?

There's Genetic origins, singularity, and heterogeneity of Basques.

FWIW that's not what that paper says at all. It's pretty dense, but their conclusion is:

Nevertheless, our analyses support the notion that the genetic uniqueness of Basques cannot be attributed to a different origin relative to other Iberian populations but instead to a reduced and irregular external gene flow since the Iron Age as suggested by Olalde et al.

That is, the Basques look like early iron Age Europeans-- which includes "Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, Neolithic farmers, and post-Neolithic Steppe herders related to the Yamnaya ancestry"-- but since the Iron Age there's been less mixture from, say, Romance speakers.

I think "steppe nomads" may be overstating things-- pastoralism developed at about the same time as agriculture.

[Richard W]

I think "steppe nomads" may be overstating things-- pastoralism developed at about the same time as agriculture.

'Immigrants from the East' then, as far as Y-chromosomes go, which is the more interesting marker. Autosomes can be less affected by pervasive dominant incomers. (The model here is that incoming patrilineal clans deepen their control of resources over the generations.)

[WeepingElf]

I once tried to connect Y-DNA haplogroups to language families, but I now consider this attempt misguided. Genes, while useful for tracing ancient migrations, say nothing about languages.

It is principally possible that the Yamnaya cultural horizon encompassed two utterly different languages, one being PIE and the other the ancestor of Basque, and that the Bell Beaker people spoke the latter. But that is of course daredevil speculation.

[jal]

Genes, while useful for tracing ancient migrations, say nothing about languages

Well, I wouldn't say nothing rather than typically very little, but yeah.


JAL

[WeepingElf]

Genes, while useful for tracing ancient migrations, say nothing about languages

Well, I wouldn't say nothing rather than typically very little, but yeah.

Fair - one can draw linguistic conclusions from the migrations the genes reveal, of course, since migrants carry their languages with them. Yet, interpreting migration patterns revealed by genetics in linguistic terms is not trivial, and language shifts where languages spread without major migrations occur often enough.

[jal]

Fair - one can draw linguistic conclusions from the migrations the genes reveal, of course, since migrants carry their languages with them. Yet, interpreting migration patterns revealed by genetics in linguistic terms is not trivial, and language shifts where languages spread without major migrations occur often enough.

Or vice versa, where migrants start speaking the language of the people they encounter.


JAL