[Lingtyp] the platypus of languages

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

> On Jul 15, 2019, at 11:31 PM, Peter Bakker <linpb at cc.au.dk> wrote:
> 
> Michif is the real platypus....
> 
> Michif is, roughly, a language with French nouns and Cree (Algonquian) verbs. In my 1997 book on the genesis of the language, I wrote (p.280):
> 
> "Michif is a unique language in many respects. It is unclassifiable genetically and
> therefore comparable with the duck-billed platypus or the panda in biology. Does it
> belong to the Algonquian or to the Indo-European (Romance) language family? Even
> as a mixed language it is unique. With its verb-noun dichotomy it looks completely
> different from the other mixed languages of the world."
> 
> Bakker, Peter. 1997. "A Language of our Own". The Genesis of Michif - the Mixed Cree-French language of the Canadian Métis. New York: Oxford University Press. 

Another good quotation. In yet another direction. (The platyus analogy seems to have occurred to many people independently.)

Michif imediately came to my mind as a stunning example of what you might think of as a genetically hybrid language. But the platypus *analogy* is totally spurious. The platypus is in no way a genetic hybrid, particularly not of a beaver and a duck; it merely has some superfically beaver-like characteristics and some superficially duck-like characteristics. What the platypus is genetically is an isolate -- roughly comparable to, say, Basque, rather than to Michif.

Pandas and penguins aren't even isolates; their genetic places, as bears (and Carnivora) and birds, respectively, are not controversial. They're just non-prototypical members of their taxa -- because they are, respectively herbivorous (indeed, adapted specifically to a diet of bamboo) and flightless (also adapted to lfe in the water as well as on land).

arnold