LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.12.03 (07) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Heiko Evermann <Heiko.Evermann at gmx.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.12.03 (06) [E]

Hi Sam,

I know quite a bit of ancient Hebrew and I have had a small look at
Arabic, and I noticed a number of parallels that (I think) are a bit too
frequent to be coincidences.

Just to name a few:

ear: IE base was "ous", Heb: Ozen
to come: Hebrew "qum" means "to get up"
six: Hebr: shesh
seven: Hebr. sheva
track (Latin trahere) : Hebrew "derek" is "the way"

when I assume a basic interchangability between L and R (in some asiatic
languages there is just one common sound for both) I find
three: IR base was "trei", Arab: talit
door: Hebrew: "delet"

Even the Hebrew conjugation of verbs does have some parallels to the
German/Latin forms.

But I do not know whether such parallels have ever been charted in
details. And I do not know whether or not a close relationship could be
proven in the end.

Is there anything about such parallels on the Web?

Regards,

Heiko

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Heiko, Sam, Lowlanders,

This discussion about ancient inter-family relationships is a periodically
recurring one on this and other language lists.  It should not come as a
surprise that it is, because pretty much anyone who digs deep enough across
family boundaries will eventually encounter material that leads one to
suspect ancient common roots.

Numerous hypotheses have been floating around for many decades, proposing
various types of earlier genealogical connections, some more likely than
others.  One of the most commonly proposed ones is the Nostratic hypothesis
that had begun with V. Illich-Svitych (e.g.,
http://popgen.well.ox.ac.uk/eurasia/htdocs/nostratic.html).  According to
this hypothesis, the Indo-European, Kartvelian, Semitic, Uralic and Altaic
families, and earlier also the Bantu family, have a common root.  There is a
Nostratic listserv, hosted by the LINGUIST group (as is ours):
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/nostratic.html.  More recently,
some people have proposed genealogical relationships between even larger
groups of families.

Personally, I believe that *all* languages *are* ultimately related to each
other, namely that human language began very early, before exodus from
Mother Africa.  For instance, if you reconstruct pronominal proto-systems
and compare them between families you will notice astonishing similarities.
However, this is really more a belief than anything else, because actually
*proving* ancient connections is pretty much impossible by the means we have
at our disposal now.  The temporal distance is simply too great and is
littered with all sorts of "static noise."  You simply cannot base anything
on handfuls of words that sound or look similar.  You must present
irrefutable evidence in the form of consistent sound shifts with sizeable
samples to support such theories.  This is hard enough to do where you and I
may have no doubt about genealogical relationships, such as in the case of
the Altaic hypothesis that a small number of territorial-minded
Turcologists, Mongolists and Tungusologists fought tooth and nail until
recently.   While some people still squabble about what others consider
self-evident, others jump to the farthest edge by trying to convince us of
"unlikely" relationships, such as one between Hungarian and Quechua, for
example, which is easily poopooed as "lunatic fringe" fantasy and is likely
to be used to discredit *all* attempts to prove relationships earlier than
those that are accepted now.

So, as far as I am concerned, this whole thing is very nebulous, because we
are dealing with the very ancient past, preceding the earliest known written
sources.  It is a bit like religion, if you will.  It depends on a person's
upbringing, world view and belief system.  People that believe there are
human "races" that sprung up independently are likely to believe that
languages or language families sprung up independently, with no genealogical
relationship between them.  People that believe that all humankind is
ultimately genealogically related are also likely to believe or to "buy" the
premise that all human languages (and cultures) descended from the same
ancestral source.  DNA-based research has made, theoretically speaking at
least, a sizeable dent in the shell of the former belief in that it proves
biological relationships between all people and is capable of tracing
genealogical lines.  But many people will cling to their spiritual and
ideological beliefs irrespective of scientific findings, and these beliefs
will determine and color their acceptance or rejections of scientific
findings.

I say, "Back to the Lowlands!"

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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