PIE vs. Proto-World (Proto-Language)

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

>> Even the
>> notion that every known language, as Basque, Burushaski or whatnot, has to
>> be related to some other language is ideology.

>I suppose it is common sense to believe that "isolates" like Basque or
>Burushaski at least have *dead* relatives. A language in colloquial
>use never stays ONE language, but will inevitably split up into several
>new languages. Which is exactly why "isolate" is merely a term
>used for languages that have not yet been proven to be related to other
>languages. Every single language has a mother and sisters. This is also
>true of PIE, of course.
>I could accept your statement above, if you inserted the word "living"
>between "other" and "language".

Granted, but I'd prefer "known" to "living".
It is of course correct, given the overall presence of language change,
interaction between human groups, spread of human groups over territories
too big to maintain uniformity of language from border to border (and all
the other things which happen to human groups over millennia) that, at some
time and place in history, languages were spoken by some groups which we
would - had we access to them - identify as relatives of Basque (in this
case, Aquitanian is of course a partly known instance of this)  or
Burushaski (the fragmentary attested Bru-Zha of some Tibetan sources may as
well be Burushaski's Aquitanian, but noone really knows).
I was rather aiming at the pool/set of known and identifiable languages and
the question whether they of necessity are classifiable into one stemma,
or, slightly different, whether all members of this set are classifiable
into *some* stemma with others. Some are, some aren't. This does not mean
that, e.g. for Basque, this will of necessity never be the case. Perhaps it
will be the case. But it hasn't happened yet, and to force it, just because
Basque (or Kusunda, or Nivkh, or Yenisseyan) *has* to fit somewhere, just
because it *cannot* be allowed that they remain "orphans forever" is, imho,
misguided. They can, such is life.

St.G.

Stefan Georg
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