Alternative to the laryngeal theory

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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #30 on: May 25, 2017, 01:22:23 PM »
OK, I am sorry if I hurt you, that wasn't my intention.
I am not saying that I know better than you (sg.). It seems to me that we simply know different things.
I didn't know that OHG had an -nt ending for the 3rd person plural, I was apparently misinformed about how past tenses are made in different Germanic languages, I didn't know about Hattushili having been mentioned in the Egyptian documents…
And, based on what you wrote, you were probably unaware of the cross-linguistic tendencies in the conjugation systems. You have also done a few not-so-significant mistakes, like claiming there was a sound change in English grammatical endings that changed -th to -s, when the ending -s actually existed back in Old English, or that semi-vowels are unlikely to change e to a or to o…
We simply happen to know different things and that's what Internet forums are for. And, in the age of the Internet, when it is incredibly easy to get to the factual information, it is very important to differentiate which information is credible and which isn't. We both know a lot about language comparison, so we can probably have a productive discussion about how to differentiate between scientific and pseudoscientific language comparisons.

So, a very common advice is to ask yourself: are those matches anything more than what we would expect by pure chance? This appears to work in the majority of cases. However, as I've shown, it would reject some quite accepted things in linguistics as pseudoscience. There are apparently no more matches between Serbo-Croatian and Latin declensions than what can be expected by chance. As for the conjugations, it's pretty hard to do the calculations because of the cross-linguistic tendencies. Since there are approximately, let's say, 20 consonants in a language and 6 endings in a present tense conjugation, mostly consisting of one consonant, you would expect there to be zero matches. Yet, comparing unrelated languages, that's not what you get. So, what other methods do we use to differentiate between science and pseudoscience? Peer-review? Well, if something passes a peer-review, that simply means it's not obviously wrong, at the first sight. Initikam's theses wouldn't pass a peer-review, but some more sophisticated theses about Adamian do. Actually, even the most obvious nonsense sometimes passes a peer-review. This linguist has tried to put the Etruscan in IE languages by showing "close phonetic proximity" between its numerals and the numerals in different(!) IE languages (no attempt to establish regular sound correspondences) and got cited on Wikipedia:
http://www.pittau.it/Etrusco/Studi/dadi.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_language#Numerals
Should I try to evaluate those claims with the knowledge I happen to have? OK, one of the things those who have attempted to reconstruct the PIE declension agree on is that the accusative singular was made by adding a syllabic m. Where are there traces of it in Serbo-Croatian? SC word for seven is "sedam", from PIE *septm, so we should expect there to be an accusative ending -am. It appears as though there is no trace of anything like that. Where are the traces of it in English? By "seven" and "ten" we see that PIE syllabic *m corresponds to English -en, so the pronoun accusatives like "him" and "them" aren't the actual traces. Based on what I know, I would conclude that's a Latin innovation. Do those who attempt to reconstruct PIE declensions do apparent ad-hoc hypotheses, as do almost all of the pseudoscientists? Well, given what I know, it appears as though they do. By Ancient Greek numerals "hepta" and "deka", we see that the syllabic *m turns to a. Yet there are accusative endings -an and -on. So they invent that the syllabic sonorants loose their syllabicity when next to a laryngeal. Or they say that the s sounds in the genitive singular and nominative plural get lost in SC by the elision of the final consonants. Isn't that an ad-hoc hypothesis? A real elision of a final s would lengthen the vowel, wouldn't it? Yet the vowels are only lengthened sometimes in the genitive plural. OK, If I studied ancient IE languages in great detail, I might find some traces of that supposed PIE declension, but where would I end up if I spent that much time studying every single such proposal?
So, what do you think, how can I actually get better at differentiating pseudoscientific from legitimate language comparisons?
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #31 on: May 26, 2017, 10:28:25 PM »
OK, I am sorry if I hurt you, that wasn't my intention.

I cried all night, but I got better now.

So, what do you think, how can I actually get better at differentiating pseudoscientific from legitimate language comparisons?

1. Try to understand what people really mean when they say things instead of building strawmen. A discussion only makes sense when both sides strive for clarity instead of "winning" the argument or something. It is not about you and me.

2. Try to understand how comparative linguistics works, instead of claiming contradictions that are not there.

3. Stop posting stuff you find on the internet just for the sake of showing "how much you know about languages", because that's cranky.

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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #32 on: May 27, 2017, 11:05:40 AM »
Perhaps you are right.

But I see that there is a huge gap between what the theorists of linguistics say how comparative linguistics should be done and how it's actually done. There are quite a few etymological dictionaries that, for instance, connect "hormone" with "are", even though there is no conceivable IE root that would give, by regular sound changes, both words (s-mobile can't be in front of a laryngeal). And I've seen many examples of IE roots being invented just to explain two words in different IE languages, often including one toponym. Many theorists of linguistic science say that a paper that argues that something is an IE language by showing close phonetic proximity between its words and words in various IE languages would never pass a peer-review, and I see it does. Many people say that relatedness of languages are shown by regular sound correspondences, when, in fact, Hittite has been shown to be IE by its word for water. Comparative linguistics is done by trial and error of people relatively uneducated in it, regardless of what the theorists say.

Anyway, I am trying to help the Croatian historians by interpreting the toponyms. Many toponyms appear to be easily explainable by PIE. Which is to be expected, IE languages have been spoken here ever since mid 3rd millennium BCE (Vucedol culture). There a few astounding examples. The ancient name for the river Kupa is Colapis, and that's obviously *kwol+*h2ep (water with meanders). The ancient name for Zagreb is Andautonia, and that can quite easily be h2en+dheh2+u(n)t+on(=om), so that it means "by that which flows". However, the mainstream Croatian toponymy quite often doesn't appear to have looked into PIE. Issa, the ancient name for the island Vis, is widely stated to have an unknown, perhaps Pre-Indo-European, etymology. However, it can easily be derived from *yes+*eh2, in the sense "where a lot of springs are". There were spas there in the Roman times. And it appears that all the ancient names for the places in Croatia where the Roman spas were share the same root. Daruvar was called Balissa (I believe Bal means bright, from *bhel) and Varazdin was called Iasa. There are multiple rivers and streams whose names appear to be derived from *h3rews. On Risnjak, the mountain, there is a stream with the same name. Many people say that the stream was named after the mountain, although it could easily be the other way around. Also, the ancient name for the river Rasa is Arsia, and, in Slavonia, there is a stream called Ervenica. Cibalae, the ancient name for Vinkovci, could easily be from *kjey+*bel (strong house), and it seems to me that nobody suggested it. The IE word for valley, *h1eyn, also appears in multiple toponyms. Incerum, the ancient name for Pozega, is often said to have an unknown etymology. However, it can easily be *h1eyn+*kjer, so that it means "the heart of the valley". The ancient name for Donji Miholjac is Mariniana. It could be from Marinus, a common roman name, but it's more likely a Latin folk-etymology of *mreys+*h1eyn, "marshy valley", which is what Donji Miholjac actually is. The mountain Papuk is said to be named after the Papuk stream, but the stream is said to be of unknown etymology. I believe it is actually from *bhebhogj (repetitive participle of *bhogj, "that which flows and flows"). The mount Psunj is also said to be of unknown etymology, even though its ancient name, Pisunus, is very similar to the PIE word for resin, *pisnu, and Psunj has a lot of softwood. The river Sutla is also said to be of of unknown etymology, although it can very easily be *suh1nt, participle of *sewh1, so that it means "that which waters the ground". Pazin is also said to be of unknown etymology, even though it's sensical as *ph2senti (pasture) There are many toponyms which are more sensibly explainable using PIE than using SC. Mainstream etymology connects the river Vuka with the SC word "vuk", for "wolf". However, it's more likely from zero grade of *welk (a PIE onomatopoeia for "to flow", syllabic l often vocalizes to u in SC even in today's loanwords), isn't it? Baranja is usually derived from "baran", a spurious SC word for lamb, but isn't it more sensical to derive it from the PIE word for marshland, *beh3r? The river Orljava is said to be derived from SC word for echo, "oriti", but isn't it more sensical to derive it from *h1or (to flow)? There are some villages whose names mainstream etymology derives from "daleko" (far away), like Dalj and Daljok. Isn't it more sensibly derived from *dhel, in the sense "milkmen"? Though, there are some place names that would appear fanciful in PIE. The ancient name for Valpovo is Iovalum, which would mean "magical beer" (*yow+*h2elut). There was quite a demonstrable word there, something like *ker, meaning "to flow", occurring in many streams and rivers (Krapina, Karasica, Krka, Korana, Krndija [the stream]…), without an obvious IE root. Or the suffix *-la in the river names like Orljava and Sutla. There are some toponyms which multiple languages could give a sensical explanation for, for instance, Pannonia (both Latin "pannis" and PIE *pen appear as sensical origins). I've tried to reconstruct some grammar of the ancient language of Slavonia based on the toponyms. Obviously, it was a centum language. I believe it had an ablaut, but not with the vowels e and o, but with a and u. For example, Mursa (the ancient name for Osijek) and Marsonia (the ancient name for Slavonski Brod) obviously share the same root (probably *mreys), and Papuk would then be a grammatical repetitive of *bhogj. Because of the epenthetic vowels (Ervenica), I'd suggest that the accent was on the first syllable (as in Ancient Greek "aster", "oros" or "ennea"). Do you think I am doing it right?
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #33 on: May 27, 2017, 11:47:26 AM »
Many people say that relatedness of languages are shown by regular sound correspondences, when, in fact, Hittite has been shown to be IE by its word for water.

I read your post only until here (I did not read most of your last post either). Cause this sentence is a perfect example for your cluelessness.

No, Hittite has not been "shown to be IE by its word for water". Hrozny FIRST HAD HE IDEA that Hittite could be an IE language by discovering that in a certain sentence WATAR most likely - because of the context - meant water. That turned out to be a good idea, but he could have discovered it by other means too. He did not "show" it that way.

So how did Hrozny really "show" that Hittite is an IE language? Guess what - by regular sound correspondences, an IE core vocabulary, a fairly typical IE declension system and other morphological features, including ablaut, a phenomenon very rare in non-IE languages.

So, indeed

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Many people say that relatedness of languages are shown by regular sound correspondences...

because that is how it works, for Hittite as for any other language.


EDIT: Hittite has some peculiarities though that sets it apart from other IE languages. So some linguists prefer to speak of an Indo-Hittite language family with IE proper as one branch and the Anatolian languages (Hittite, Luwian etc.) as the other branch. But those are details, the relationship is well established.
« Last Edit: May 27, 2017, 11:57:49 AM by FalseProphet »

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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #34 on: May 28, 2017, 03:10:22 AM »
Actually, no, what Hrozny used to prove that Hittite was an IE language was the sentence "Nu NINDA-an ezzateni watar-ma ekutteni". By the time he established the sound correspondences and the grammar, it was already accepted that Hittite was IE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedřich_Hrozný
The sources disagree on some details, but the basic story is always the same (curiously, none of them appear to mention the irony that ekutteni and aqua are now thought to be false cognates).

As for the regular sound correspondences, let me ask you a question. Would you expect to be understood by a native German speaker who knows no English if you tried to speak English while turning every t in the beginning of a word to ts, every t not in the beginning of a word to s, every th to d, every s to z, every v to b, every d to t, every oo to u, every ou to au, every ei to a, every ea to o, and so on? Or do you think you would be better understood if you just spoke English? Please answer me honestly.
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #35 on: May 28, 2017, 04:34:55 AM »
Actually, no, what Hrozny used to prove that Hittite was an IE language was the sentence "Nu NINDA-an ezzateni watar-ma ekutteni". By the time he established the sound correspondences and the grammar, it was already accepted that Hittite was IE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedřich_Hrozný
.

The wikipedia article only says what I told you. No, he did not "use the sentence to prove that Hittite is IE." Again, he only first had the idea, that it is IE when he encountered this sentence. He assumed it based on this sentence. Do you understand that proving something and assuming something is not the same?
Also, before you post anything, please understand the difference between "accepted" and "proven". The former requires only a reasonable amount of probability.

The sources disagree on some details, but the basic story is always the same (curiously, none of them appear to mention the irony that ekutteni and aqua are now thought to be false cognates)

I do not know that, I'm not an expert of Hittite. Source?

As for the regular sound correspondences, let me ask you a question. Would you expect to be understood by a native German speaker who knows no English if you tried to speak English while turning every t in the beginning of a word to ts, every t not in the beginning of a word to s, every th to d, every s to z, every v to b, every d to t, every oo to u, every ou to au, every ei to a, every ea to o, and so on? Or do you think you would be better understood if you just spoke English? Please answer me honestly.

I do not know why this is even relevant, but my answer is this:

When the English speaker would use an artificial English where all words inherited from the West Germanic parent language are pronounced applying the High German sound shift, a German speaker may recognize more words than if he would use normal English. If the English speaker  would apply the same sound shifts to the French loan words as well (which would, of course, make little sense), he would recognize less words.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2017, 04:42:44 AM by FalseProphet »

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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #36 on: May 29, 2017, 09:58:26 AM »
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Again, he only first had the idea, that it is IE when he encountered this sentence.
Don't you think that translating the poetry using the etymological method and publishing a paper about it is a bit more than just having the first idea about Hittite being IE?
Quote
Also, before you post anything, please understand the difference between "accepted" and "proven". The former requires only a reasonable amount of probability.
I don't think so. On this forum, it's been proven many times that the Earth is flat. Yet it's universally accepted among the astronomers that it's round. So, what do you think is more likely to be true? If almost all experts in the field accept something, there is a very good reason for it, and that reason isn't necessarily easy to understand for those who don't know much about the field. Something being almost universally accepted by the experts is better evidence for it being true than what evidence is an alleged proof of it.
OK, do you think that the thing William Jones noticed, when he said that no philologist who examines Greek, Latin and Sanskrit could deny they are related, is something like that Sanskrit bh corresponds to Latin f and Greek ph? Or do you think he noticed the similarities in, let's say, the numerals?
Do you think it hadn't been obvious that Germanic languages are IE all until the Grimm's law was found?
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I do not know that, I'm not an expert of Hittite. Source?
"Ekutteni" comes from PIE *h1egwh, and Latin "aqua" comes from *h2ep, and the two roots are probably unrelated.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂ékʷeh₂
Quote
I do not know why this is even relevant
I meant something like: "Does anyone really believe in the 'regular sound changes'?"

I must admit I expected some people to be on my side here.
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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #37 on: June 06, 2017, 08:55:47 AM »
I just don't understand it. Why does almost every discussion I have on Internet forums turn into ad-hominem attacks? This time I chose to discuss something probably nobody has strong feelings about, like PIE grammar, and not politics or religion. I've spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours educating myself about it, so that I can be sure I know what I am talking about. Yet I'm unable to rationally discuss it. Any idea what's actually going on?
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #38 on: June 06, 2017, 09:07:41 AM »
Man, how can we discuss about something you do not understand when you do not understand that you do not understand it?

What actually do you mean when you say you are a "freethinker"?

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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #39 on: June 06, 2017, 09:02:21 PM »
By labeling myself as a free thinker, I meant that I trust the conclusions I make myself, and that I don't like arguments from authority.

And how can I know that I don't understand the linguists? What if I actually understand them correctly? What if the mainstream attempts to reconstruct PIE grammar and the mainstream etymology of the Croatian toponyms are, in fact, nonsense? Do you know about SCIgen? It's a computer program that generates nonsense about informatics, but uses so powerfull language that it can sometimes even trick the experts. Namely, they attribute its apparent incoherence to their own lack of knowledge. What if that's what's going on in modern linguistics? What if it's that just very few people dare to contradict somebody who talks about PIE grammar?

Besides, they are linguists, so isn't it their job to make themselves understood? If they can't, isn't it their fault, and not mine?
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #40 on: June 06, 2017, 10:26:38 PM »
By labeling myself as a free thinker, I meant that I trust the conclusions I make myself, and that I don't like arguments from authority.

But what about the conclusions made by others who came before you and were more knowledgeable than you? Are they worth nothing? It is no argument from authority when you first learn from others and then, when you know enough, make your own conclusions. We must all start as a student, we cannot start as researchers. It is the habit (and the arrogance) of the crank, that he never wants to be a student only.

And how can I know that I don't understand the linguists? What if I actually understand them correctly? What if the mainstream attempts to reconstruct PIE grammar and the mainstream etymology of the Croatian toponyms are, in fact, nonsense? Do you know about SCIgen? It's a computer program that generates nonsense about informatics, but uses so powerfull language that it can sometimes even trick the experts. Namely, they attribute its apparent incoherence to their own lack of knowledge. What if that's what's going on in modern linguistics? What if it's that just very few people dare to contradict somebody who talks about PIE grammar?

You have only a very dim idea of what you call "mainstream linguistics". So it is illogical from you to expect that your judgement about it has any value. And indeed the thoughts you have uttered about that matter are mostly irrelevant and sometimes nonsensical. I do not say that, because I believe in "mainstream linguistics" (I partially object to it as well), but because I have learned what we know about the history and behaviour of languages. You have not. You have no interest in learning something, you want to find out everything by yourself. That's impossible for a human and that's why you fail, in thought and, probably, also in life.

Besides, they are linguists, so isn't it their job to make themselves understood? If they can't, isn't it their fault, and not mine?

Haha. You have a point there.

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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #41 on: June 07, 2017, 06:07:38 AM »
I am not trying to figure out everything by myself. Like I've said, I've spent around thousand hours reading about linguistics, mostly on-line (I'll discount everything I have learned in school as not true linguistics). A signifficant amount of time I've spent reading what's not so relevant to what we are discussing here, I've also spent a signifficant amount of time reading what I now consider to be quackery. Low-balling it, let's say I've spent 200 hours reading what other people have written about PIE grammar and things relevant to it. Isn't that more than enough to be able to make some conclusions by myself?
As for not knowing how grammars of languages tend to develop, listen, I've spent hours and hours reading about pidgins and creoles and I know nothing more about it than I used to know. There are so many controversies, there is no scientific consensus about it whatsoever.
And can you link me to something you think I need to learn? Calling me names isn't helping.
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #42 on: June 07, 2017, 06:17:48 AM »
You wasted your time.

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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #43 on: June 08, 2017, 12:26:12 AM »
Well, if I stop learning linguistics right now, then I certainly did waste a lot of time. But, quite often, it happened to me that I was reading something for hours and hours from various sources and it didn't make any sense to me. Then I find a few sentences somewhere and, when I read them, suddenly everything makes perfect sense. That's why we have Internet forums, right?
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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #44 on: June 11, 2017, 09:13:14 PM »
Will you "help" me or should I look elsewhere (and probably be confirming to myself what I already believe)?
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Bom Tishop

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #45 on: June 11, 2017, 09:42:22 PM »
Don't listen to false prophet, he knows not what he speaks majority of the time. He is a ball of spiteful rage with no outlet besides here.

Also, don't let him fool you about what he knows in linguistics, he knows one area well, rest not so much. The area he knows well is rarely a use here.
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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #46 on: June 12, 2017, 04:35:22 AM »
Whenever you try to estimate how much you know, or how much someone else knows, keep the Dunning-Kruger effect in mind.
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #47 on: June 12, 2017, 05:48:15 AM »
Will you "help" me or should I look elsewhere (and probably be confirming to myself what I already believe)?

I frankly do not know what you want.

At first you challenged the laryngeal theory based on some twisted thoughts and than you revealed that you did not even believe it.

Then you assumed that PIE did not have a sophisticated conjugation, only because there is a t in German when there should be a d, refusing my explanation for it (which could certainly be wrong) without reason.

Than you claimed Hrozny tried to prove the IE nature of Hittite with one sentence based on a misunderstood remark in a wikipedia article and there seems to be no way to tell you that you are wrong by that.

And when people tell you that you are confused it's "name calling".
« Last Edit: June 13, 2017, 09:10:24 AM by FalseProphet »

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Bom Tishop

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #48 on: June 12, 2017, 05:53:13 AM »
Whenever you try to estimate how much you know, or how much someone else knows, keep the Dunning-Kruger effect in mind.

I am not estimating, he stated it in a post the exact area he works in, as well as the areas he knows from personal research or less specialized roles.

As for me calling him a spiteful ball of rage with no outlet besides here...I stand by that as an opinion highly backed by evidence. As I have said many times I still like him though for some reason. Our Feud has been going on since before you were here and it will continue on after you leave.

Lurk more before making silly comments
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #49 on: June 12, 2017, 06:07:21 AM »
As I have said many times I still like him though for some reason.

Because I remind you on your abusive father who always screamed what a dumbass you are when he beat you with the horse whip and you still can't stop loving him?

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Bom Tishop

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #50 on: June 12, 2017, 06:34:25 AM »
As I have said many times I still like him though for some reason.

Because I remind you on your abusive father who always screamed what a dumbass you are when he beat you with the horse whip and you still can't stop loving him?

This proves both of my statements..of why I like him as well as he is a ball of impotent rage with no outlet  :-*
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #51 on: June 12, 2017, 06:55:25 AM »
As I have said many times I still like him though for some reason.

Because I remind you on your abusive father who always screamed what a dumbass you are when he beat you with the horse whip and you still can't stop loving him?

This proves both of my statements..of why I like him as well as he is a ball of impotent rage with no outlet  :-*

You know it works when you do not take your opiates.

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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #52 on: June 20, 2017, 10:08:46 AM »
OK, let's say you are right. That, if I studied Ancient Greek grammar and Finnish grammar in very depth, it would somehow be clear to me that one of them is related to Latin and that one isn't. For now, after hundreds of hours of studying linguistics, I have no idea even what to look for, but let's say there are people who are somehow able to do that. Are you happy now?
Will you help me with the Croatian toponyms?
https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=70713.msg1913893#msg1913893
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #53 on: June 20, 2017, 12:07:06 PM »
OK, let's say you are right. That, if I studied Ancient Greek grammar and Finnish grammar in very depth, it would somehow be clear to me that one of them is related to Latin and that one isn't.

Friend, a modest knowledge of Ancient Greek and Sanskrit is enough to tell you that the two must be related. While a modest knowledge of Finnish should tell you that Finnish is most likely not an IE language.

Will you help me with the Croatian toponyms?
https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=70713.msg1913893#msg1913893

Sorry, I know very little about Slavic languages and do not have the time to change this sad fact.

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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #54 on: June 23, 2017, 06:30:15 AM »
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Friend, a modest knowledge of Ancient Greek and Sanskrit is enough to tell you that the two must be related. While a modest knowledge of Finnish should tell you that Finnish is most likely not an IE language.
Of course. If you see the numerals, it's fairly obvious which are or aren't related (Armenian perhaps being the only exception among IE languages). The numbers 2 and 10 start with the same sound in almost all IE languages, and almost nowhere else (Kind of weird that more ancient languages didn't use the phrase "two hands" for 10, as Proto-Indo-European apparently did). However, if you see the conjugational endings, it's not obvious at all.
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Sorry, I know very little about Slavic languages and do not have the time to change this sad fact.
It's not about Slavic languages at all. I am talking mostly about the historical toponyms in Croatia, ones attested centuries before the Slavic languages were even spoken there. They appear to be easily explainable using Proto-Indo-European.
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #55 on: June 23, 2017, 04:40:45 PM »
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Friend, a modest knowledge of Ancient Greek and Sanskrit is enough to tell you that the two must be related. While a modest knowledge of Finnish should tell you that Finnish is most likely not an IE language.
Of course. If you see the numerals, it's fairly obvious which are or aren't related (Armenian perhaps being the only exception among IE languages). The numbers 2 and 10 start with the same sound in almost all IE languages, and almost nowhere else (Kind of weird that more ancient languages didn't use the phrase "two hands" for 10, as Proto-Indo-European apparently did). However, if you see the conjugational endings, it's not obvious at all.

You cannot just look at individual endings, you must look at the whole system. Then you will find that there are very specific similarities: the distinction between primary, secondary, stative and imperative endings, the distinction between thematic and athematic verbs, the augment - the list goes on and on, in fact almost every feature of Greek verbal grammar has a counterpart in Sanskrit. The material relationship of the endings is not obvious at first glance, but it becomes obvious as soon as you discover the regularities.

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Sorry, I know very little about Slavic languages and do not have the time to change this sad fact.
It's not about Slavic languages at all. I am talking mostly about the historical toponyms in Croatia, ones attested centuries before the Slavic languages were even spoken there. They appear to be easily explainable using Proto-Indo-European.

I only know that prior to the Slavs another people with IE language dwelt in present day Croatia: the Illyrians. About them I know even less than about Slavic. Their language may have been ancestral to Albanian, but that is far from certain. Yet when you are interested in Croatian toponymy you may want to look into what little remains from Illyrian as attested by Greek and Roman authors.

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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #56 on: June 24, 2017, 08:52:48 AM »
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The material relationship of the endings is not obvious at first glance, but it becomes obvious as soon as you discover the regularities.
Simple regular sound changes would be obvious pretty soon. When you see the English and German numerals side-by-side, it becomes obvious that English t in the beginning of a word corresponds to German ts and that English s corresponds to German z. The same doesn't happen with the grammatical endings.
There are some examples of languages that are grammatically very similar, but you can't establish regular sound correspondences, like Japanese and Korean.
And quite often you can't translate word-for-word from English to German, which are otherwise quite closely related.
Typological similarity is not an evidence of language relatedness.
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I only know that prior to the Slavs another people with IE language dwelt in present day Croatia: the Illyrians. About them I know even less than about Slavic.
It almost certainly wasn't a single language. In Istria, for example, there is a river (Raša) previously named Arsia, and, in Slavonia, there is a stream named Ervenica. Both of them probably come from *h3rews (like Latin "ruo"), but their names are themselves very different. Though those languages could be related, the epenthetic vowels themselves are quite rare in IE.
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Their language may have been ancestral to Albanian, but that is far from certain.
That's probably just a politicization of science (to which linguistics is very vulnerable). If you assume the Messapian language was closely related to Illyrian, it can't be. There is no trace of satemisation in Messapian, and Albanian is a satem language. You can explain away the famous Messapian phrase "Klohi Zis" (listen, Zeus) by saying that kj didn't turn to s because of the following liquid consonant, but you can't explain the Messapian word for ten, "dehatan", the same way. Or, even worse, the Illyrian personal name Decomos.
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Yet when you are interested in Croatian toponymy you may want to look into what little remains from Illyrian as attested by Greek and Roman authors.
I think you can get way further by knowing a bit of PIE. For example, Zagreb was called Andautonia in ancient times. That could easily be *h2en+*dheh2+*unt+*om, "near that which flows (the Sava river)". There are many such toponyms. And, of course, similar or the same elements repeat again and again. There are, for example, only three places in Croatia with ancient thermae: Vis (Issa), Daruvar (Balissa) and Varaždin (Iasa). That root (*issa~*iasa) could easily be *yes+*eh2 (where a lot of springs are). I've listed many more examples here:
https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=70713.msg1913893#msg1913893
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #57 on: June 24, 2017, 12:07:12 PM »
Typological similarity is not an evidence of language relatedness.

I do not speak about "typological similarity". I try to explain you how obvious it is that Greek and Sanskrit grammars are closely related. Typology has nothing to do with it. Typology is only about relatively superficial similarities, while Greek and Sanskrit show a deep systematic relationship, even idenity in many details, that could not be explained by something like areal typology. Also, the morphemes of both languages and multiple words are demonstrably related as well, they are just two very typical IE languages. I do not know what you are getting at. Do you still believe, that PIE did not have a verbal conjugation as reconstructed?

About the rest of your post, as I said, I cannot say much, only that the connection between Messapian and Illyrian is as far as I know an outdated theory and that linguists consider Liburnian as a different language than Illyrian. Since the former was spoke in Istria, you are likely right that the examples you gave point to two different languages.

No, the idea that Illyrian is ancestral to modern day Albanian is actually not a "politicization of science". It is a natural (but so far unproven) assumption, because if the Albanians do not stem from the Illyrians, where the hell do they come from or where did they hide all the time? But of course the idea has been politicized among Albanian nationalists (including Enver Hoxha)

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FlatAssembler

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #58 on: June 25, 2017, 04:39:07 AM »
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I do not speak about "typological similarity".
You talked about them both having traces of ablaut, different endings for indicative, conjunctive and imperative, different endings for whether a stem ends on consonant or a vowel… Aren't those typological similarities? Valid evidence for relatedness would be if you could deduce what are the corresponding endings in both languages by simple regular sound changes.
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They are just two very typical IE languages.
Modern IE languages typically don't have those things.
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Do you still believe that PIE did not have a verbal conjugation as reconstructed?
Almost certainly not. The mainstream reconstruction of the PIE grammar changes rapidly, and it's very unlikely that the current one is correct.
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About the rest of your post, as I said, I cannot say much, only that the connection between Messapian and Illyrian is as far as I know an outdated theory and that linguists consider Liburnian as a different language than Illyrian.
I didn't know that connection between Messapian and Illyrian is an outdated theory. I know that mainstream Croatian linguistics considers Liburnian to have been an Anatolian language. That's based on the apparent loanwords from Anatolian in the Chakavian dialect. It's been estimated than Liburnian went extinct by the 16th century. Unfortunately, it hasn't been attested in its written form.
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Since the former was spoke in Istria, you are likely right that the examples you gave point to two different languages.
I didn't know that. I know of a theory that equates the Liburnians with the "Illyrian" tribe Dindarii, that dwelt on the Dinara mountain.
Did Anatolian languages have the epenthetic vowels? I didn't know that.
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It is a natural (but so far unproven) assumption, because if the Albanians do not stem from the Illyrians, where the hell do they come from or where did they hide all the time?
Well, almost certainly not from a language that had undergone centumization and that had the epenthetic vowels!
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About the rest of your post, as I said, I cannot say much.
So, do you think that my method for interpreting the toponyms is correct? If not, why not? It appears to be relatively similar to the method Hrozny used to decipher Hittite.
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FalseProphet

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Re: Alternative to the laryngeal theory
« Reply #59 on: June 25, 2017, 08:38:29 AM »
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I do not speak about "typological similarity".
You talked about them both having traces of ablaut, different endings for indicative, conjunctive and imperative, different endings for whether a stem ends on consonant or a vowel… Aren't those typological similarities? Valid evidence for relatedness would be if you could deduce what are the corresponding endings in both languages by simple regular sound changes.

No, I spoke about the conjugational system as a whole, regardless of the relatedness of the morphemes, that is not the same as typology. But even many linguists do not understand that. But since morphemes of Greek and Sanskrit can be shown to be related by applying regular sound changes, this is not even relevant.

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Modern IE languages typically don't have those things.

Because they have lost them.

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Do you still believe that PIE did not have a verbal conjugation as reconstructed?
Almost certainly not. The mainstream reconstruction of the PIE grammar changes rapidly, and it's very unlikely that the current one is correct.

There are some uncertainties, but fact is, PIE had a complicated verbal system and many IE languages have preserved this system very well in their earliest attested form. They did not develop those similar systems independently from each other nor by "areal typology", they inherited it from PIE.


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I know that mainstream Croatian linguistics considers Liburnian to have been an Anatolian language. That's based on the apparent loanwords from Anatolian in the Chakavian dialect.

I doubt that

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It's been estimated than Liburnian went extinct by the 16th century.

No, it went extinct in ancient times

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So, do you think that my method for interpreting the toponyms is correct

No idea
« Last Edit: June 25, 2017, 08:44:43 AM by FalseProphet »