PIE vs. Proto-World (Proto-Language)

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

[ Moderator's note:
  The following quoted material is from a message by <JoatSimeon at aol.com>.
  Just keeping things straight.
  --rma ]

>In a message dated 7/12/99 9:28:59 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
>proto-language at email.msn.com writes:

>>I simply do not understand why some find it difficult to understand that
>>reconstructing the Proto-Language is only primarily different from
>>reconstructing Indo-European in the wider selection of source languages for
>>data.

>-- Temporal distance.  Loss of information.  Entropy.

>A distinction between 5,000 years of unrecoverable loss and 50,000 years of
>unrecoverable loss.

>Words _vanish_.  A certain percentage of vocabulary just ceases to exist in
>every century.

And, if I may insert this much to Pat's chagrin, the notion that human
language is a monogenetic phenomenon is aprioristic ideology. Even the
notion that every known language, as Basque, Burushaski or whatnot, has to
be related to some other language is ideology. "Having consonants" may be a
universal feature of human language, "Being related to some other lg."
simply is not.

Stefan Georg
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