Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Brilliant-Resource14]

didn't predict that me making a joke about nostratic would cause me to virtually be two degrees from the guy I was joking about

i'm testing his "sound correspondences" against PIE swadesh

Well, part of it might be that you're still relatively new here. When someone arrives about whom we don't know anything yet, it might take us some time to judge with some certainty whether they're seriously a crank or joking about being one. Sometimes, real cranks do show up here.

i personally do not buy it, and i'm going in with the mindset of "what the hell" (as in, his 4-laryngeal view of PIE)

[hwhatting]

*puts tinfoil hat on*

I assume that refers to the PIE - Japanese relationship? Because the Kloekhorst proposal certainly isn't crackpottery.

[Lērisama]

*puts tinfoil hat on*

I assume that refers to the PIE - Japanese relationship? Because the Kloekhorst proposal certainly isn't crackpottery.

Where can I find this? I don't remember seeing anything about that on his website. Admittedly I last checked a while ago.

[WeepingElf]

*puts tinfoil hat on*

I assume that refers to the PIE - Japanese relationship? Because the Kloekhorst proposal certainly isn't crackpottery.

Where can I find this? I don't remember seeing anything about that on his website. Admittedly I last checked a while ago.

No, Kloekhorst never proposed a relationship between IE and Japanese. He proposed that the PIE word for 'name' is derived from a root *h₃neh₃- 'to name, to call' reflected in the Hittite verb ḫannai- 'to call to court'. And that seems to make sense to me.

[Brilliant-Resource14]

I was *about* to make a "theory" that there were two branches of PIE (p-PIE and q-PIE, so to say), and it could theoretically explain p-Italic and p-Celtic (and PU *peni), but I realized I don't think the sound changes would work out quite well

[Lērisama]

No, Kloekhorst never proposed a relationship between IE and Japanese. He proposed that the PIE word for 'name' is derived from a root *h₃neh₃- 'to name, to call' reflected in the Hittite verb ḫannai- 'to call to court'. And that seems to make sense to me.

Ah, sorry I misread that.

[jal]

I was *about* to make a "theory" that there were two branches of PIE (p-PIE and q-PIE, so to say), and it could theoretically explain p-Italic and p-Celtic (and PU *peni), but I realized I don't think the sound changes would work out quite well

Let's stay scientific and call it a "hypothesis" :). Good for you you got that realization, and not be a quack and shoehorn it in :D


JAL

[Moose-tache]

I once read an article trying to make an argument that computationally more information is lost removing the short vowels from Arabic than from Latin. In short, the article was trying to dispel the idea that nothing of value is lost by not writing short vowels in an abjad, and that the Arabic script works not because Semitic languages just don't need vowels, but because writing systems only have to be good enough. But now I can't find the article. Does anyone remember it?

[Travis B.]

I once read an article trying to make an argument that computationally more information is lost removing the short vowels from Arabic than from Latin. In short, the article was trying to dispel the idea that nothing of value is lost by not writing short vowels in an abjad, and that the Arabic script works not because Semitic languages just don't need vowels, but because writing systems only have to be good enough. But now I can't find the article. Does anyone remember it?

That reminds me of how it's been demonstrated that English in Latin script can commonly be understood if the individual letters in any given word are scrambled as long as the first and last letters are kept the same.

Of course, the real reason why abjads don't write short vowels is because Egyptian didn't write them either, and the original Semitic abjad was inspired by Egyptian writing. Of course, that raises the question of why didn't Egyptian develop a way of writing them until Greek script was largely taken wholesale by Coptic.

[Raphael]

Of course, that raises the question of why didn't Egyptian develop a way of writing them until Greek script was largely taken wholesale by Coptic.

See Moose's point

but because writing systems only have to be good enough.

[bradrn]

Of course, that raises the question of why didn't Egyptian develop a way of writing them until Greek script was largely taken wholesale by Coptic.

Also why abjads adapted to non-Semitic languages have a mysterious habit of gaining their vowels back (etc. Yiddish, Kurdish, Uyghur; arguably even Greek).

[WeepingElf]

Of course, that raises the question of why didn't Egyptian develop a way of writing them until Greek script was largely taken wholesale by Coptic.

Also why abjads adapted to non-Semitic languages have a mysterious habit of gaining their vowels back (etc. Yiddish, Kurdish, Uyghur; arguably even Greek).

I seem to remember reading somewhere (but I forgot where) that the Greeks probably never consciously invented vowel letters but simply mistook the Phoenician letters for semivowels and laryngeals for vowel letters. It also appears as if the Semitic acrophonic principle (each letter is named for, and originally depicted before it was graphically simplified, a word with its value as the initial consonant) arose from a misconception about how Egyptian hieroglyphs worked.

[Richard W]

Of course, the real reason why abjads don't write short vowels is because Egyptian didn't write them either, and the original Semitic abjad was inspired by Egyptian writing. Of course, that raises the question of why didn't Egyptian develop a way of writing them until Greek script was largely taken wholesale by Coptic.

I think the real reason that abjads often write long vowels is that some consonants merged with the previous vowel, so that the resultant vowel could be seen as being written with the consonant. Punic (in its Semitic script) notoriously doesn't write long vowels, and of course Ugaritic was very sparing in its writing of vowels.

There is the Egyptian phenomenon of 'group writing', which gives some indication of vowels. More precisely, there is a suggestion that a stressed back vowel was indicated in group writing, much as back vowels are commonly indicated in Modern Hebrew.

[zompist]

I seem to remember reading somewhere (but I forgot where) that the Greeks probably never consciously invented vowel letters but simply mistook the Phoenician letters for semivowels and laryngeals for vowel letters.

Yes, this was argued by Geoffrey Sampson in Writing Systems, but probably didn't originate with him. He imagines some Phoenician explaining the acrophonic principle, and then they get to ʔalep. He repeats it over and over, but Greek has no glottal stop. So the Greek guy hears alpʰa and figures it represents /a/.

I personally suspect that representing vowels, though obvious to us, is a difficult concept, and thus it was really only invented once. All the independently invented writing systems started by representing syllables. Judging from various scripts, there seems to be a hierarchy of salience. From high to low perceptibility:

entire syllables
initial consonants
rhyme (i.e. entire syllable except the initial)
long vowels
final stops
short vowels
final liquids
length
tone

Once the alphabet exists, it can be copied by others.

(The Phoenicians developed matres lectionis, so it's not really accurate to describe Semitic writing as only representing consonants.)

[Travis B.]

Interestingly enough, in some cases geminates seem to be more perceptible than vowel length, as shown by how many historical Germanic languages wrote geminates but not vowel length.

(Edit: Also, while originally in Latin long vowels were often marked with the apex, it is not uncommon to see Latin written with geminates but without explicit marking of vowel length.)

[zompist]

Interestingly enough, in some cases geminates seem to be more perceptible than vowel length, as shown by how many historical Germanic languages wrote geminates but not vowel length.

(Edit: Also, while originally in Latin long vowels were often marked with the apex, it is not uncommon to see Latin written with geminates but without explicit marking of vowel length.)

I think you're right. However, by distinguishing long and short vowels in the list I was thinking of Phoenician (and thence other Semitic languages). Systematically marking length is pretty low down the list.

[bradrn]

some consonants merged with the previous vowel, so that the resultant vowel could be seen as being written with the consonant

Not sure I understand this?

[Nortaneous]

some consonants merged with the previous vowel, so that the resultant vowel could be seen as being written with the consonant

Not sure I understand this?

Loss with compensatory lengthening (and coloring?)

[Richard W]

some consonants merged with the previous vowel, so that the resultant vowel could be seen as being written with the consonant

Not sure I understand this?

Loss with compensatory lengthening (and coloring?)

aw > oː, so <w> comes to be seen as mater lectionis.
aʔ > aː, so <ʔ> can also come to be seen as a mater lectionis.

[zompist]

aw > oː, so <w> comes to be seen as mater lectionis.
aʔ > aː, so <ʔ> can also come to be seen as a mater lectionis.

A curious parallel: in Sumerian, there were glyphs for ʔan, ʔab, ʔin...then the glottal stop was lost, so these became VC glyphs, which had not previously existed.