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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I defer to the scholars here, insel, but in a nutshell, PIE is a theory created through back-formation; sort of compare & contrast. Kinda like the big-bang theory of the creation of the universe (uh-oh!).
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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We have a large group of languages that could not have the similarities they do without their having an unrecorded common ancestor.
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More like circumstantial evidence I suppose, but after some folks had noticed a whole series of systematic relationships between languages in Europe and South Asia, they started to compare these languages together mainly phonologically and semantically, deriving a bunch of rules of language change which when applied to the daughter languages led to the reconstruction of the hypothetical proto-language, Proto-Indo-European, from which they had descended. Not all folks believe in the genetic relationship between these daughter languages, appealing to other linguistic processes (called areal). The Russian prince, NS Trubetskoy wrote an engimatic article shortly before he died (as a result of an intense interrogation in Vienna by the Gestapo), but some think it was a joke (he had delivered it as a talk). Others, e.g. RMW Dixon, have pointed out that these areal processes fit some languages better, e.g., Australian Aborginal ones.
I personally hold that the IE languages are related genetically, i.e., that they are descended from a common ancestor, and that we have some idea of what that language's lexical element looked like. The comparative method works rather well with the Romance languages, which few would argue are not descended from Latin or something a lot like Latin.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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(Thanks, all). So that Indo European is a theoretical model? Now, is there a difference between Indo European and Proto Indo European? And, finally, in constructing such a theory, does one 'extrapolate?' That is, can one extrapolate backwards in time. Or, actually, can one extrapolate *in time* at all? (This isn't a bid at wit, I'm just wondering).
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Well, IE refers to the current and extinct languages that are descended from PIE. PIE has been also divided into earlier and later phase. When you look at the appendix in the A-H dictionary, the roots given are reconstructed PIE roots.
Well, I suppose that PIE itself is an extrapolation from the recorded IE languages backwards in time to about 6000 BCE. Some folks (today usually called Nostraticists) try to extrapolate further back in time from PIE and Proto-Semitic (the reconstructed parent of Hebrew, Arabic, Ethiopian, et al) and other proto-languages to Nostratic. Others say that 10,000 years BP is about as far back as the historical-comparative method can take you. The enmity between these two groups is rather intense. [Full disclosure, I fall into the anti-Nostraticist group, but try not to get drawn into flamewars with the pro-Nostraticist group.]
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addict
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addict
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Enjoyed reading this thread; thank Max for starting. jheem, is Nostratic the supposed Ur language then? What does Nostratic mean? And now that you have come clean, I suppose it is all right to ask why you are anti-Nostratic!? 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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That is, can one extrapolate backwards in time. Yes--unless I am mistaken, that's what archaeologists do. If you can extrapolate backwards from artifacts that can be seen and touched, I don't see why it could not also be done for things that can be heard.
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IIRC, Nostratic has some tie with noster 'our' in Latin. I don't think the evidence that I've seen supports their position. OTOH, most of what I've read on it is rather popular accounts and anti-Nist's rants with the pro-Nists. I've been meaning to get the pro-N book by the late Russian linguist who started it all. Begins with an 's'; let me get back to you on it.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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<<backward in time>>
Thanks, Jackie. To be honest, something was bothering me, when I asked that -- but I'm no longer sure what. ;)
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journeyman
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journeyman
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Illich-Svitych and Dogopolsky were the Russian proponents. Then there was Greenberg, who had a similar and overlapping proposal for Eurasiatic, covering most of the Siberian langauges. I'd like these things to be true, though I'm sad there probably never will be enough evidence to be convincing.
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