About the estimates of divergence times of Uralic languages

[Pekka Sammallahti]

Santeri is absolutely right but there is an additional factor which  
has to be taken into account. Protolanguage areas disintegrate by  
innovations, and when an innovation pervades area B, area A is left  
intact which means that the protolanguage lives on at least for a  
while; it is completely possible that a branch of a protolanguage  
might show only minor changes for a long time, perhaps even millennia  
when the rate of innovations is low. Later on, however, both areas are  
likely to accumulate their own innovations which sometimes might cross  
the border, most of the time not, and the split will be deepened  
accordingly.

It is interesting to see the closure of a circle here. Evolutionary  
models were applied to languages long before they became standard in  
biology, and it seems fairly clear to me that linguistic evolution  
served as a basis for evolutionary ideas in biology a few generations  
later. The lag was probably caused by Christian religion which  
defended the idea of creation of biological species as long as it was  
feasible but languages were seen as having developed from a single  
protospeech, disintegrated by what happened in Babel.

Pekka Sammallahti

Quoting Santeri <santeri.junttila at helsinki.fi>:

> Please keep in mind that a language split is a lengthy process, that
> cannot be given a single date. The oldest phonetic isoglosse traceable
> with the historical comparative method doesn't mean neither a rupture
> in the mutual comprehensibility of the protolanguage nor a division of
> the community speaking it. It must not be interpreted as the point of
> divergence of the protolanguage, though this is just what most
> Uralicists and Indo-Europeanist do. Instead, it means only the first
> traceable split in the proto-dialect. If we define a language as a
> bunch of mutually comprehensible dialects, the split of a protolanguage
> must be defined as a process of increasing incomprehensibility. This
> means, in the normal case, not as much phonetic as lexical divergence.
> Lexical divergence, in turn, is mostly caused by language contact.
>
> To sum up: splits of protolanguages should be searched in periods of
> intensive language contacts, but they can't be given an exact date.
>
> Best wishes
>  Santeri Junttila
>
>
> Lainaus "Terhi Honkola" <terhi.honkola at utu.fi>:
>
> [Piilota lainattu teksti]
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> I´m a PhD student in a research group called BEDLAN (Biological
> Evolution and the
> Diversification of Languages) where we analyse linguistic data with
> biological methods.
> For further information see  http://kielievoluutio.uta.fi.
>
> The reason why I approach to you, the members of URA-LIST, now is that
> I have done
> lately timing analyses to the Uralic languages. An essential part in
> those analyses is
> the correct estimation of the calibration points. I  have already gone
> through different
> sources (i.e. Sinor 1988, Abondolo 1998, Kallio 2006) where divergence
> times of
> languages have earlier been estimated and by now I have used the
> following calibration
> points:
> *Early Proto-Finnic: 2500 YBP (years before present) ± 500 years
> *Obugric 1700 YBP ± 200 years
> *Permic 1300 YBP ± 100 years
>
> Do you think that these calibration points with these error scales are
> appropriate or
> would you suggest us to use some other calibration points?
>
> I ask this as I believe research is done around this topic all the time
> and now I would
> like to hear your newest results about the divergence times of Uralic
> languages to see
> if, for example, the error scales of the timings could be narrowed. I
> was also hoping
> you could give me names of articles which I could read around this topic.
>
> I would appreciate your answers very much.
>
> With kind regards,
>
> Terhi Honkola
>
> *******************
>
> Terhi Honkola
> PhD student
> Section of Ecology, Department of Biology
> University of Turku
> FIN-20014 TURKU
> Finland
>
>
>
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