the meaning of "genetic relationship"

[bwald]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I wrote:
 
>> Now we are getting to one of my favorite points, pointing out that
>> preoccupation with genetic relationship to the exclusion of other factors
>> in linguistic change carries with it the 19th century baggage of romantic
>> nationalism ...
 
Isidore Dyen responded:
 
>The key word above is preoccupation, a loaded word. You continue to use
>loaded words and they do interfere with the straightforward exchange of
>views. There is no special privilege associated with genetic relationship
>so that if you are not interested in it or do not believe it is worth
>examining, forget it. Why go on about it? Genetic linguistics is a subject
>on whose evaluation you disagree with. Just get on with your research.
>That's what is important, we hope.
 
Nothing more needs to be said about this, other than to say: it's good advice.
 
I went on later:
 
>> NB.  In my original quote above I give the perspective of an interest in
>> the mechanics of linguistic change  -- an end in itself.  Dyen's response
>> takes the perspective of an interest in linguistic change as a tool for
>> uncovering past history, which I take to mean social history -- a means to
>> an end.  My questions above accommodate to that end.
 
ID respond:
 
>It may help you to understand the importance of genetic linguistics, if
>you start from the point that man is distinguished from other animals by
>language. It seems to me to follow that as we trace the back the history
>of the presently occurring languages we are dealing with the history of
>the human being, though perhaps not completely, but an important
>contribution to the total history.
 
That's fine with me.  Nevertheless, I maintain that tracing back the
history of presently occurring languages is a quite different task from
understanding how human language originated.  So far the role of genetic
linguistics toward the second issue is simply one of dismissing some of the
more absurd theories of language origins.