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Previous Thread Next Thread Print Thread Study: grammar traces ancient languages #148190 09/23/05 12:54 PM Joined: Mar 2000 Posts: 6,511 lower upstate New York AnnaStrophic OP Carpal Tunnel OP AnnaStrophic Carpal Tunnel Joined: Mar 2000 Posts: 6,511 lower upstate New York from nature.com "Grammar analysis reveals ancient language tree It's not the words, it's how you use them that counts. When it comes to working out the relationships between ancient languages, grammar is more enlightening than vocabulary, scientists say. There are some 300 language families in the world today. Researchers have long studied similarities between the words in different languages to try to work out how they are related. But the rate of change in languages means that this method really only works back to 10,000 years ago. Homo sapiens evolved more than a hundred thousand years ago and by 10,000 years ago had already settled around the globe. So researchers are keen to peer further back in time to see how language evolved and spread..." http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050919/full/050919-10.html Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Re: Study: grammar traces ancient languages #148191 09/23/05 01:58 PM Joined: Aug 2005 Posts: 3,290 R'lyeh zmjezhd Carpal Tunnel zmjezhd Carpal Tunnel Joined: Aug 2005 Posts: 3,290 R'lyeh Interesting. Unfortunately, I don't see why word order, syntax (the relationship between words in a phrase) or grammatical categories (such as gender) are any less prone to change than phonology or morphology. 1. Librum legi. 2. J'ai lu le livre. Latin and French are not that far apart historically. Ceci n'est pas un seing. Copy Link to Clipboard Share Post on Facebook Share Post on Twitter Moderated by  Jackie  Hop To General Topics ------  Information and announcements  Q&A about words  Wordplay and fun  Words and languages in schools  Miscellany  Weekly Themes  Looking for (writers, speakers,... (Old) Weekly themes. (have been... ------  Words from medicine  Beheading words  Meta-words  Words from classical mythology  Animal Safari  Words with unusual etymologies  Eponyms or words derived from p...  Loanwords from German  English as a global language Print Thread Switch to Threaded Mode Show Likes Link Copied to Clipboard View Profile Private Message Follow User Forum Posts Like Summary View Profile Private Message Website Follow User Forum Posts Like Summary Forum Statistics Forums16 Topics13,913 Posts229,351 Members9,182 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), 642 guests, and 1 robot. Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod Top Posters(30 Days) wofahulicodoc 27 A C Bowden 22 LukeJavan8 2 ddrinnan 1 Top Posters wwh 13,858 Faldage 13,803 Jackie 11,613 wofahulicodoc 10,549 tsuwm 10,542 LukeJavan8 9,918 Buffalo Shrdlu 7,210 AnnaStrophic 6,511 Wordwind 6,296 of troy 5,400

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