Oldest words in English?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Commentary on the Log from Mark Liberman, with more surely to follow...

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1186
"Scrabble tips for time travelers?"


On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 11:52 AM, Joseph Salmons <jsalmons at wisc.edu> wrote:
>
> This looks like a followup on the work Pagel and co-authors published
> in Nature in 2007. They are serious evolutionary biologists trying to
> apply their methods to comparative linguistics, with often predictable
> reactions from many historical linguists.
>
> I have to assume that Pagel was clear about these being sound
> correspondences rather than the 'same words' in the sense you get from
> the article. I assume the claim is that the correspondence should go
> back 40,000 years to some kind of pre-pre-pre-Proto-Indo-European
> community. Still, the connection between 'I' and an IE form like
> *Heg-  would be only ca. 6,000 years old, and I'm curious what kind of
> forms 40,000 years of time depth would get us.
>
>
> On Feb 26, 2009, at 10:37 AM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       RonButters at AOL.COM
> > Subject:      Oldest words in English?
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Either the TIMES reporter was totally inept, or Dr. Pagel knows very
> > little
> > about language. The article is filled with nonsense. For example,
> > the articl=
> > e=20
> > says in effect that the English numerals and the pronoun "I" would
> > have been=
> > =20
> > intelligible to persons alive 10,000 or more years ago. This is
> > obvious=20
> > nonsense. The English numerals and pronouns were not even pronounced
> > 1000 ye=
> > ars ago as=20
> > they are today. Moreover, the article seems to suggest that, just
> > because=20
> > modern languages use pronouns, any language that uses pronouns must
> > be=20
> > historically related. This is ridiculous, whether you are a
> > Chomskyite ("pro=
> > nouns are=20
> > wired into the human brain") or a Skinnerite ("pronouns are so
> > useful that=20
> > people would be likely to invent them if their language didn't have
> > them").
> >
> > Of course, it IS true that "By comparing these languages, it is
> > possible to=20
> > work out how and when they diverged, and to trace the evolutionary
> > history o=
> > f=20
> > individual words." But this is scarcely news. Linguists have been
> > doing that=
> > =20
> > for 150 years. AMERICAN HERITAGE dictionary used to publish a
> > supplement=20
> > containing ProtoIndoEuropean roots. But no one has ever claimed that
> > the fir=
> > st humans=20
> > spoke PIE.
> >
> >
> > In a message dated 2/26/09 4:07:32 AM,
> > wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG writes=
> > :
> >
> >
> >> The BBC ran an item this morning on research into the oldest words
> >> in the
> >> language, picking up a story in The Times:
> >> =20
> >> =A0 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7911645.stm
> >> =A0 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5805522.ece
> >> =20
> >> "Dr Pagel has recently been able to track the evolutionary history
> >> of Indo=
> > -
> >> European back almost 30,000 years, using a new IBM supercomputer.
> >> He said
> >> that some of the oldest words were well over 10,000 years old."
> >> =20
> >> Is much known to anyone on the list about the methodology involved?
> >> =20
> >> =20
> >> --
> >> Michael Quinion
> >> Editor, World Wide Words
> >> E-mail: wordseditor at worldwidewords.org
> >> Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org
> >> =20
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >> =20
> >> =20
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > **************
> > Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your=20
> > neighborhood today.=20
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> >
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>
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