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zmjezhd #186405 08/11/09 02:32 AM
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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?

Jackie #186700 09/04/09 12:06 PM
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It just seems to be one of those unanswerable questions - I cannot but emphatically agree!
The question seems to me akin to asking: how likely are chance resemblances between clouds..

wsieber #186703 09/05/09 02:50 AM
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Mama and papa or baba are the first sounds a baby makes so in almost every language this becomes mother and father. This is not evidence of a proto language but coincidence. Are there others that anyone can think of?

Zed #186706 09/05/09 11:15 AM
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In Georgian mama means 'father' and deda means 'mother'. See this excellent little paper.

WARNING: pdf

Faldage #186715 09/06/09 06:57 AM
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Thanks, that was interesting.

Zed #186718 09/06/09 04:41 PM
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Very, very interesting. Thanks.


----please, draw me a sheep----
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