on the epistemological nature of historical linguistics...

[Guy Deutscher]

Behind all the merriment that Gonzalo Rubio's posting has helped create, I
think there lies a serious point concerning  isolates .
 
It is unquestionable that the romantic attraction of finding
linguistic/cultural relatives among exotic peoples is one of the main
reasons for the obsession of amateurs with isolate languages. But wouldn't
it be fair to say that this attraction is strongly encouraged by the
relative rarity of such languages, and so by the conception that an isolate
language is abnormal, something strange which needs to be explained away?
(And what better explanation than: it is not an isolate after all...)
 
But why are isolate languages actually so rare? Why e.g. are there only a
handful of 'Basque's 'Sumerian's or 'Etruscan's in Europe/Western Asia,
rather than dozens of unrelated languages? Of course the question can be
explained ad hoc each time by the peculiar historical circumstances of any
given language, if we know what they are.
But wouldn t it be helpful if linguists discussed in general terms what the
conditions are for the survival of  isolates , and why these conditions are
(relatively) so rarely met?
 
Guy Deutscher.
 
=======================================
Guy Deutscher
Trinity College
Cambridge CB2 1TQ       E-mail: gd116 at cam.ac.uk
England                 Tel: 01223- 365994