LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.12.05 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Margaret Tarbet <oneko at att.net>
Subject: "Language varieties"

Ron asked:

> What *are* "basic" words?  Usually people try to
>think of what may have been basic in "primitive" cultures, such as "fire,"
>"hunt," and parts of the body.

A few years ago, in the very polyglot newsgroup for fans of the
work of Terry Pratchett OBE, we seem to have discovered at least
one word that's shared across language-group boundaries:  caca,
(IE: kakka-) meaning foeces, bad, nasty, unpleasant, undesirable,
etc.   Intuitively it would seem to be a very primitive word and
unlikely to be an import from some other language group.  If I
recall correctly, we found it in IE, Finno-Ugric, Semitic, and
two or three others I can't now remember.

It's not lowlands-specific, but, since I'm sure list members here
are even more polyglot than the Pratchettians, it might be an
interesting exercise to see in just how many language groups that
word *does* appear.

Margaret

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.12.05 (03) [E]


Ron wrote:
"My basic point is that it is often difficult to determine what words are
truly universally basic."

Numerals one to ten, Ron, surely?

Criostóir.

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Críostóir (above) :

> Numerals one to ten, Ron, surely?

I'm afraid not.  Truly universally you can go no farther than "three," or
even just "two."  There is a whole bunch of languages, typically those of
people who got separated relatively early, especially in Southern Africa,
Australia, the Island of Papua-New Guinea/Irian Jaya, and South America,
that do not count to ten, quite a few only "one" -> "two" -> "three" ->
"many", some in South America even only "one" -> "two".  Theoretically
speaking then, initially there may have been a need to count only "one" ->
"two" -> "many" (perhaps also "I" + "you" = "we" = "everyone").

Take a look here (home page: http://www.zompist.com/numbers.shtml):
http://www.zompist.com/nilo.htm#khoisan
http://www.zompist.com/aust.htm#australia
http://www.zompist.com/newg.htm#papua
http://www.zompist.com/same.htm#andean

Furthermore, while you find agreements within families, there is, by and
large, little to no agreement across families.  So, perhaps numerals as we
now know them and take for granted may not even be all that old

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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