PIE vs. Proto-World (Proto-Language)

[Larry Trask]

On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Adam Hyllested wrote:

> On Fri, 16 Jul 1999, Ralf-Stefan Georg wrote:

>> Even the
>> notion that every known language, as Basque, Burushaski or whatnot, has to
>> be related to some other language is ideology.

> I suppose it is common sense to believe that "isolates" like Basque
> or Burushaski at least have *dead* relatives. A language in
> colloquial use never stays ONE language, but will inevitably split
> up into several new languages. Which is exactly why "isolate" is
> merely a term used for languages that have not yet been proven to be
> related to other languages. Every single language has a mother and
> sisters. This is also true of PIE, of course.

> I could accept your statement above, if you inserted the word
> "living" between "other" and "language".

Well, `known' rather than `living', I would suggest.  I took Stefan's
statement to mean `known language', since I cannot conceive of any
program relating known languages to unknown languages.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk