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OP
old hand
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The term 4-5K languages?
I've changed it in the post to be expanded. You can't DO that! You've rendered Luke's and buffy's posts irrelevant! [Just pretending outrage] Yes maybe the diagram is not all inclusive, but I just liked the way it was laid out. I read a book on mind maps once. Apparently that is how we think. Apparently, that is how our thoughts look if diagrammed.
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Pooh-Bah
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.... Apparently that is how we think. Apparently, that is how our thoughts look if diagrammed. I believe that, Avy. Sometimes one word sends me off in a direction and then out to another and another. It would be good to have access to a reference map like that to get back to the original thought.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I read a book on mind maps onceDo you have a title or author? There's a good book which discusses (amongst other things) how diagrams (like trees) developed in European books: Walter J. Ong Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason 1953. Peter Ramus was a humanist and an education theorist in the 16th century. Anyway, I am not convinced that we know what thought or thinking is (really) and how thoughts are "mapped" out in the brain. A tree diagram like the one in the link are good at showing relationships between languages, but there was (early on) a competing map of language development to the orthodox Stammbaum theory (family tree), and it was called the Wave Theory. That languages develop over time like the waves on a pond after a pebble has been dropped in, overlapping and expanding waves of change. While we're on it, some linguists who study semantic fields (i.e., how words can be grouped together by meaning rather than form) draw diagrams similar to the one under discussion. (See the Wikipedia article on tree model.)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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old hand
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OP
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I read a book on mind maps once
Do you have a title or author? There's a good book which discusses (amongst other things) how diagrams (like trees) developed in European books: Walter J. Ong Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason 1953. No. Too long ago that was. I borrowed it from my Swiss boss at the time. Decay of dialogue? Sounds interesting. Is it about the death of aesthetics in dialogue? Does it say why rhetorical devices are more or less dead? Regarding mind maps, do google mind maps... That was pretty much what the book was about. I am not sure the mind maps haven't been subconscoiusly inspired by the shape of the neuron. There is no reason why the node should be so spider shape or the base of the branches so thick. So that's how your thoughts look like a neuron.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The term 4-5K languages?
I've changed it in the post to be expanded. You can't DO that! You've rendered Luke's and buffy's posts irrelevant! [Just pretending outrage] Yes maybe the diagram is not all inclusive, but I just liked the way it was laid out. I read a book on mind maps once. Apparently that is how we think. Apparently, that is how our thoughts look if diagrammed. If mine could be mapped that well, and looked so magnificent, then even I would be impressed.yuk
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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A tree diagram like the one in the link are good at showing relationships between languages, but there was (early on) a competing map of language development to the orthodox Stammbaum theory (family tree), and it was called the Wave Theory. That languages develop over time like the waves on a pond after a pebble has been dropped in, overlapping and expanding waves of change. While we're on it, some linguists who study semantic fields (i.e., how words can be grouped together by meaning rather than form) draw diagrams similar to the one under discussion. (See the Wikipedia article on tree model.) John McWhorter feels that there is more to it than a simple tree diagram. I particular he believes that English grammar was highly influenced by Welsh grammar in its (English's) early days in England and that Proto-Germanic was influenced by a Semitic language in its early days, citing the fact that about one-third of the words in the Germanic languages are not from any known PIE roots and that the ablaut series for strong verb tenses is seen in no other branch of Indo-European. Read all about it in his Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sounds good. I've added it to my wish list there.
I would hope it is not too complicated.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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just as an aside, Amazon's bargain price is six(6) dollar-bucks, and yet the Kindle price is more than double that(!) at $12.99. they really need to do something about their pricing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I particular he believes that English grammar was highly influenced by Welsh grammar in its (English's) early days in England
Hard to say one way or another without seeing the evidence. Conjecture is fine, as are SWAGs, and I do enjoy McWhorter's linguistics, if not his politics. Off the top of my cold-addled head, Celtic languages are VSO and Germanic ones tend to be SOV changing towards SVO.
and that Proto-Germanic was influenced by a Semitic language in its early days, citing the fact that about one-third of the words in the Germanic languages are not from any known PIE roots and that the ablaut series for strong verb tenses is seen in no other branch of Indo-European.
This same, well-known situation, has led others (e.g., Theo Vennemann) to suggest that Germanic developed from a creole mid-way between (Pan-)European and Proto-Indo-European. There was a philologist in the 19th century who studied the Semitic substrate in Indo-European. It makes sense because a lot of technology and products came out of the Middle and Near East.
OTOH, ablaut is a huge part of Indo-European phonology and morphology. It alos exists in other languages (e.g., I have a book on ablaut in Moroccan Arabic). I have not read the book you link to -- yet.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I particular he believes that English grammar was highly influenced by Welsh grammar in its (English's) early days in England
Hard to say one way or another without seeing the evidence. Conjecture is fine, as are SWAGs, and I do enjoy McWhorter's linguistics, if not his politics. Off the top of my cold-addled head, Celtic languages are VSO and Germanic ones tend to be SOV changing towards SVO. His argument on the Welsh influence is based on the use of what he calls the meaningless "do", in particular in questions and the negative. E.g., "Do you come here often?" as opposed to the normal IE "Come you here often?" or "I don't drink milk" versus "I drink not milk." and that Proto-Germanic was influenced by a Semitic language in its early days, citing the fact that about one-third of the words in the Germanic languages are not from any known PIE roots and that the ablaut series for strong verb tenses is seen in no other branch of Indo-European.
This same, well-known situation, has led others (e.g., Theo Vennemann) to suggest that Germanic developed from a creole mid-way between (Pan-)European and Proto-Indo-European. There was a philologist in the 19th century who studied the Semitic substrate in Indo-European. It makes sense because a lot of technology and products came out of the Middle and Near East.
OTOH, ablaut is a huge part of Indo-European phonology and morphology. It also exists in other languages (e.g., I have a book on ablaut in Moroccan Arabic). I have not read the book you link to -- yet.
Is the ablaut used to mark tense in any non-Germanic languages?
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