[Lingtyp] the platypus of languages

[Alex Francois]

dear Arnold,

> *What the platypus is genetically is an isolate -- roughly comparable to,
say, Basque, rather than to Michif.*
As far as I know, the platypus is not an isolate;  it's a mammal.  Simply,
it forms (together with other monotremes discovered later) the first-order
branch of the class of mammals, with conservative characteristics not
shared by other (phylogenetically more innovative) mammals.

When it was discovered in 1798, the platypus was indeed deemed strange, due
to its duck-like bill (Ornithorhynchus < ὀρνιθόρυγχος), and also the fact
that it would have hair and yet lay eggs.  This forced naturalists to
rethink the category of Mammals, which until then had all combined hair
with viviparity.

So if we wish to push the metaphor and look for an even more exact analogue
in linguistics, then the closest equivalent of a platypus would rather be a
language like Hittite  — or its equivalent in other lg families:  a
first-order branch of a family which has kept certain characteristics (e.g.
consonantal laryngeals…) that all other members have lost.

best
Alex
------------------------------

Alex François

LaTTiCe <http://lattice.cnrs.fr/Francois-Alexandre?lang=en> — CNRS–
<http://www.cnrs.fr/index.html>ENS
<https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>
–Sorbonne nouvelle
<http://www.univ-paris3.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
Australian National University
<https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/francois-a>
Academia page <https://cnrs.academia.edu/AlexFran%C3%A7ois> – Personal
homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>
------------------------------

On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 at 15:08, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:

>
> > 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
>
>
>
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