Wordsmith Talk |
About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us | |||
Register Log In Wordsmith.org Forums General Topics Miscellany mass comparisons
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Rather than coming to a conclusion, he seems to be starting off making a point, then using all those calculations to "prove" it.
Essentially he seems to be saying that people, particularly those with no linguistic training, tend to see cognates and patterns in sounds and meaning(s) between languages, when statistically they are likely to be due to chance.
I can't argue either way, certainly. There are the physical limitations of the human speech structures--which is more of an argument for coincidence. But it seems to me that his parameters are rather arbitrary--though frankly I don't know how else he could have established them! But I can't help thinking that his numbers would be more accurate if: a.) we knew how things were pronounced in ancient times; b.) they took into account b.1.) travel and b.2.) regional accents and dialects.
Yes, I know that if he/we had that information, this whole question would be moot. But my point is that, no matter how intricately he delved into the numbers of known "phonetic leeway", I think there are too many unknowns for these numbers to be considered accurate.
It just seems to be one of those unanswerable questions; in any example, is the similarity pure coincidence or is there a piece of history that we're not aware of?
Entire Thread Subject Posted By Posted mass comparisons zmjezhd 08/10/09 01:56 PM Re: mass comparisons Zed 08/10/09 05:06 PM Re: mass comparisons LukeJavan8 08/10/09 05:31 PM Re: mass comparisons zmjezhd 08/10/09 05:44 PM Re: mass comparisons BranShea 08/10/09 07:28 PM Re: ort zmjezhd 08/10/09 08:00 PM Re: ort BranShea 08/10/09 08:39 PM Re: ort zmjezhd 08/10/09 08:46 PM Re: ort Rhimes 08/10/09 10:36 PM Re: ort zmjezhd 08/11/09 12:11 AM Re: ort Jackie 08/11/09 02:32 AM Re: ort wsieber 09/04/09 12:06 PM Re: ort Zed 09/05/09 02:50 AM Re: ort Faldage 09/05/09 11:15 AM Re: ort Zed 09/06/09 06:57 AM Re: ort LukeJavan8 09/06/09 04:41 PM
Moderated by Jackie
Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Statistics Forums16Topics13,913Posts229,389Members9,182 Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
Newest Members Ineffable, ddrinnan, TRIALNERRA, befuddledmind, KILL_YOUR_SUV
9,182 Registered Users
Who's Online Now 1 members (A C Bowden), 835 guests, and 2 robots. Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Top Posters(30 Days) A C Bowden 29
Top Posters wwh 13,858Faldage 13,803Jackie 11,613wofahulicodoc 10,572tsuwm 10,542LukeJavan8 9,920Buffalo Shrdlu 7,210AnnaStrophic 6,511Wordwind 6,296of troy 5,400
Forum Rules · Mark All Read Contact Us · Forum Help · Wordsmith.org