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Agriculture gave rise to one of world’s most mysterious language families

50 pointsby infodocketover 3 years ago

6 comments

canjobearover 3 years ago
I’ve never heard the term Transeurasian languages before, but it seems to be a rebranding of the Altaic languages[0]. The hypothesis that these form a real language family is viewed with extreme suspicion by modern historical linguists because the sound correspondences are not very convincing.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Altaic_languages" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Altaic_languages</a>
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selimthegrimover 3 years ago
A Sprachbund (extensive borrowing) is not remotely the same as being from a common root.<p>Interesting about millet though, I think theories about the origin of the Dravidian language family depend on words for different kinds of millet too.
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peter303over 3 years ago
Strangest borrowing claim I heard was that Germanic strong verbs (hence English) came from Semitic language verb forms. Columbia linguist McWhorter claims this his Story of English book.
ummonkover 3 years ago
&gt; They focused on what Robbeets calls “culture-free” vocabulary, including words for basic items such as “field,” “pig,” and “house.”<p>Words for such material goods often jump languages. These aren’t the terms one should be focusing on if one is actually seriously trying to prove the existence of a language family. There is nothing in this research to suggest a change to the consensus view that the Altaic languages don’t constitute a language family.
eterevskyover 3 years ago
&gt; “It’s convincing,” says Peter Bellwood, an archaeologist at ...<p>Why are they asking an archeologist to comment on a linguistic theory?
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senorsmileover 3 years ago
There are a few threads in r&#x2F;linguistics about this. Basically, there&#x27;s no new evidence here proving Altaic (what she now wants to call transeurasian).