on the epistemological nature of HL & isolates

[benji wald]

I was stimulated by many of the messages of the last few days, and would
like to make some comments on them.
 
 First, I was a little surprised by Gonzalo Rubio's comments a few days ago
to my last message:
 
>Benji Wald makes an interesting point when he says that somehow most
>pioneers of historical linguistics were dilettanti. ....Obviously, someone
>working on a >field before this field becomes a common discipline, could
>be called dilettante, in some >way.
 
It did not occur to me that somebody might take my comments in that way.
My major intention was simply to say that originally, and to some extent
still, both dilettantes, whoever they may be, and the immediate originators
of the discipline of historical linguistics were driven by the same
concerns, in particular, recovering past history in order to make
deductions about relatedness of peoples (actually the cultures of known
groups of people).  My point was also that this was/is basically an
EXTRA-linguistic concern, a social concern.  I wanted to emphasise this
because I also wanted to point out that as methods for this endeavor were
developed, various INTRA-linguistic concerns (esp about "possible
linguistic change") developed.  Then I pointed out that "dilettantes"
rarely appreciate the INTRA-linguistic concerns, but remain focussed on the
EXTRA-linguistic concerns, with dileterious effects on their methods of
demonstration, which now seem naive and amateurish (in the "bad" sense) to
us.
 
Gonzalo interpreted me right only to the extent that I could be taken as
implying that originally there was no basis, either in terms of
disciplinary field or methodology, to distinguish "scholars" and
"dilettantes" with respect to the driving issue characterised above.  (At
one point some "scholars" assumed that Hebrew as the mother of all
languages, at a later point that Sanskrit was the mother of the
Indo-European group, etc.  All cultures seem to have a myth that their
language is the "pure" or, more commonly, the  "impure" form of some older
language, and that there are other pure or impure forms of the same
language -- the historical sense is there.  That their language has
relatively recently been "corrupted" one way or another is a very common
cross-cultural belief.)
 
On the same topic, Dorothy Disterheft wrote a separate message, addressed
to distinguishing terms like "dilettante" and "amateur".  With regard to
terminology, I had decided in my last message to accept Gozalo's terms.
But I did not take them all that seriously with respect to motives and
methods.  Instead I decided not to obscure the points I wanted to make by
adding in that message that I considered the terms I was using somewhat
"strawmen".  I thought it would just be a distraction to bring up this
additional point.  In fact, I think that even some scholars (who should
know better) get impatient with the lack of progress/agreement in uniting
some isolates and "proto-isolates" (e.g., Proto-Indo-European, etc.) with
something else,  Like the dilettantes, they would like to be in future
history books as (one of) "the first" to have "recognised" (or "claimed")
the relationship between (Proto-)X and (Proto-)Y.  They forget to bear in
mind that a good future history of linguistics may add that they made the
identification on the basis of shabby methods, though it was later (in the
future) confirmed on the basis of sound methods, through no fault of the
visionaries (except to the extent that we can honor, say, Kircher, as
having correctly though accidentally guessed that Egyptian hieroglyphics
reflected an old form of Coptic).  Such impatiently glory-seeking scholars
are not alone to blame, since current and past HL books do mention older
scholars who made identifications later confirmed, but do not add that
their reasoning and methods were faulty.  (EG. maybe, that Egyptian is
related to Hebrew, not because Hebrew is the mother of all languages, but
because both descend from Proto-Afro-Asiatic, or whatever.)
 
To mention writers of books on HL, Larry Trask wrote:
 
I don't think linguistics has yet succeeded in imposing itself upon
the public consciousness as a fully respectable scholarly discipline,
an understanding of which requires years of painstaking study.
Whereas physics, I suspect, is widely perceived as a priesthood whose
mysteries are closed to outsiders, *everybody* is entitled to an
opinion about language.
 
What Larry wrote is quite true, I think.  However, we must also consider
that "physics" as such is not public property, whereas as a *social*
phenomenon language is.  It is not only the case that "everybody" is
*entitled* to have an opinion about language, but that they are socially
*required* to.  I may just be critical of the generality of Larry's wording
here, since if "language" were mystified for the public the same way
"physics" is (mainly by the media ), the public (reporters, makers of
educational documentaries, etc.) would defer to us, the experts.  I must
add, though, that I have my doubts that linguists are ripe for such a
position, since language is an extremely important "public" property, and
I'm not even sure that linguists know enough about the relation between
language and society to take over in the public mind as the ultimate
experts.  It goes without saying, nevertheless, that the public believes a
lot that we linguists know is false.  What we don't always appreciate are
the reasons that the "public" has the false beliefs it does, and how they
function in the society.    Until we understand that, and can replace those
functions, we won't be able to replace those beliefs.  The linguistic (but
not social) pointlessness of the recent "Ebonics" controversy is a case in
point (among many).  That is relevant to HL to the extent that it was
narrowed to the issue of whether the language of many black Americans is a
descendent of "English" or not.  The answer is one that "genetic" HL is not
equipped to address, but a "genetic" answer was insisted upon by the
disseminators of information to the society at large.
 
Next, with regard to the discussion of isolates.  We've already had some
terminological quibbles.  Clearly there were more "isolates" in the past
than there are now.  The assumption is simply that they are related to
other languages (dead and/or still living) at a time depth that stymies us
(temporarily, we hope).  Guy Deutscher wrote:
 
>But why are isolate languages actually so rare? ...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?
 
This is essentially the same issue as the current concern with the death of
so many languages, and ultimately with the death of ANY "language".  It has
been cast by some, say, in reference to Johanna Nichols' ideas, as the
death of language *families*, but, essentially that is the same as the
death of ANY language.  The question that really emerges which has a
historical twist to it is: how long has the reduction of language families
been going on in human history?  Are the processes of destruction we see
today essentially different from what has been going on for a tremendously
long period in human history?  There is a questionable assumption in this
question that relates to Scott Delacey's point on isolates.  He wrote:
 
>unless this population created a new language rather
>than bringing one with them, the language didn't start out as an
>isolate.
 
By extension, heshould assume that all languages are related *genetically*.
Otherwise, various languages and/or current language families descended
from independent isolates.  The question then reaches back to the origin of
language, and we will not know the answer until we have figured out how
"language" arose and attained its current shape
(universal/language-independent? shape, whatever that turns out to be).
One possibility, which contradicts the assumption that there were NOT
originally a number of language isolates, is that the diversification began
before language reached its current "universal" form.  It is dangerous to
make that assumption, of course, because it invites all kinds of crackpots
to keep presenting "survivals" of "pre-language" in selected current
languages.  But it is also dangerous to dismiss it out of hand since that
allows the reverse crackpot-ism that ALL languages are "genetically"
related in a fully formed "proto-world" language.  (Of course, the way
things are going that doesn't preclude that the lucky proto-world was only
one of various pre-language isolates that managed to survive for
non-linguistic reasons.)
Both ideas (and more, perhaps) should be borne in  mind as checks on each
other, as both scholars and "dilettantes" continue on their quest.
--  Benji