PIE vs. Proto-World (Proto-Language)

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear Larry and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Larry Trask <larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Sent: Friday, July 16, 1999 10:06 AM

Larry wrote:

> And the same goes for "Proto-World", or whatever.  Until a persuasive
> case has been made that *all* of the world's 6000 or so known languages
> are genuinely related, there is no point in attempting a
> "reconstruction" of "Proto-World".  The result of such a rash attempt
> can be no more than legerdemain.  Of course you can show that this, that
> and the other *might* have a common ancestor, but you can do this in
> countless entirely different ways, none of them superior to any other,
> and you cannot show that these things really *are* related.

Pat writes:

The "persuasive case" has already been made. Monogenesis is much likelier
than polygenesis. And you have written so yourself!

What mitigates against it is incorrect ideas of vocabulary (*CVC-root) loss,
mistaken applications of Kinderlallsprache, loan specialists that would make
the Rothschilds wild with envy, and fuzzy concepts like your favorite
"expressive" --- all of which seeming to foredoom its recoverability.

Pat

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