<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">No need to rant. Two syntacticians, Jan
Terje Faarlund and Joe Emonds, have recently made the case<br>
that English is closer to Northern Germanic than it is to Western
Germanic: <br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://ktwop.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/modern-english-derives-from-scandinavian-rather-than-from-old-english/">http://ktwop.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/modern-english-derives-from-scandinavian-rather-than-from-old-english/</a><br>
<br>
best,<br>
John Goldsmith <br>
<br>
On 12/02/2012 04:53 PM, Charles Hall wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:1354488832.98071.YahooMailNeo@web140303.mail.bf1.yahoo.com"
type="cite">
<div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff;
font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt">ah,
yet another example of a misguided use of computational
approaches based on simplistic understanding of language. and
especially diachronic linguistics Historically, there wasn't any
language we might call Danish until ca 1100 [i.e. after the
Norman Conquest] or so when the Old East Norse dialect started
to split into Danish and Swedish. Since that development is well
documented historically, any analysis that posits a "closer"
relationship between "English" and "Danish" that fails to
explain why that would not then also be the case for English and
Swedish is just another lovely "correlation proves causation"
fallacy of which we already have quite enough.<br>
<br>
In other words, [attention, rant follows], you have to do heaps
of background research before you toss innocent data into the
hungry maws of the compunaut....<br>
<br>
and just to remind, genetic background, genetic distribution
doesn't have to have anything to do with what languages are
spoken. Ethnic groups routinely add, dump, or replace languages
with wild abandon. As the Endangered Language Fund points out,
about 50% of the worlds' 7000 languages will disappear this
century.<br>
<br>
and on that happy note,<br>
<br>
Best wishes,<br>
<br>
Charles<br>
<br>
<br>
<div><span><br>
</span></div>
<div> </div>
<div>*************<br>
Charles Hall, Ph.D., dr.h.<br>
University of Memphis, Department of English<br>
Applied Linguistics and EFL/ESL<br>
901.313.4496<br>
<br>
</div>
<div><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.charleshall.info">www.charleshall.info</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.l4law.org">www.l4law.org</a><br>
<div style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;
font-size: 12pt;">
<div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times,
serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<div dir="ltr"> <font size="2" face="Arial">
<hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b>
Nicholas Sanders <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:nix@semiotek.org"><nix@semiotek.org></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:corpora@uib.no">corpora@uib.no</a> <br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b>
Friday, November 30, 2012 5:46 PM<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b>
Re: [Corpora-List] English is close to Sandinavian
languages<br>
</font> </div>
<br>
<meta http-equiv="x-dns-prefetch-control" content="off">
<div id="yiv148537218">
<div>
<div>
<div>On 30 Nov 2012, at 14:34, Patrick Juola <<a
moz-do-not-send="true" rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:juola@mathcs.duq.edu"
target="_blank"
href="mailto:juola@mathcs.duq.edu">juola@mathcs.duq.edu</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="yiv148537218Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite"><span
style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:medium;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;orphans:2;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;display:inline;float:none;">There's
a well-attested history of English and the rest
of the Germanic languages that puts English
fairly firmly in the West Germanic family along
with Frisian and Saxon, and at a greater
distance, Dutch and standard German.</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
I make no claim to be fit to enter this debate, but I
feel it worthwhile to mention Stephen Oppenheimer's "<span
style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);">The
Origins of the British</span>" which
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<h1 class="yiv148537218parseasinTitle"
style="font-weight:normal;margin-bottom:0px;margin-top:0px;background-color:rgb(255,
255, 255);"><font size="3"><span
class="yiv148537218Apple-tab-span"
style="white-space:pre;"> </span>… demonstrates
that the Anglo-Saxon invasions contributed just
a tiny fraction (5%) to the English gene pool.
Two thirds of the English people reveal an
unbroken line of genetic descent from
south-western Europeans arriving long before the
first farmers. The bulk of the remaining third
arrived between 7,000 and 3,000 years ago as
part of long-term north-west European trade and
immigration, especially from Scandinavia - and
may have brought with them the earliest forms of
English language.</font></h1>
<div><font size="3"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font size="3">Whether it does so demonstrate,
I (as noted) am not not qualified to say!</font></div>
<div>
<div><font class="yiv148537218Apple-style-span"
size="3" face="Verdana"><span
class="yiv148537218Apple-style-span"
style="font-size:11px;"><br>
<br>
-- <br>
<br>
Nicholas J A Sanders<br>
___________________<br>
<font class="yiv148537218Apple-style-span"
size="5" face="'Comic Sans MS'"><span
class="yiv148537218Apple-style-span"
style="font-size:18px;">semiotek</span></font><br>
<br>
+44 [0]7092 153 409<br>
</span></font><a moz-do-not-send="true"
rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:nix@semiotek.org"
target="_blank" href="mailto:nix@semiotek.org"
style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;"><font
class="yiv148537218Apple-style-span"
size="3" face="Verdana"><span
class="yiv148537218Apple-style-span"
style="font-size:11px;">nix@semiotek.org</span></font></a><font
class="yiv148537218Apple-style-span" size="3"
face="Verdana"><span
class="yiv148537218Apple-style-span"
style="font-size:11px;"><br>
___________________</span></font></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br class="yiv148537218Apple-interchange-newline">
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<meta http-equiv="x-dns-prefetch-control" content="on">
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
UNSUBSCRIBE from this page: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://mailman.uib.no/options/corpora"
target="_blank">http://mailman.uib.no/options/corpora</a><br>
Corpora mailing list<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" ymailto="mailto:Corpora@uib.no"
href="mailto:Corpora@uib.no">Corpora@uib.no</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora"
target="_blank">http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<br>
<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
UNSUBSCRIBE from this page: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mailman.uib.no/options/corpora">http://mailman.uib.no/options/corpora</a>
Corpora mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Corpora@uib.no">Corpora@uib.no</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora">http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>