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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
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?
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027 |
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..
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
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?
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
In Georgian mama means 'father' and deda means 'mother'. See this excellent little paper. WARNING: pdf
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Joined: Aug 2002
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
Thanks, that was interesting.
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Joined: Jun 2008
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,916 Likes: 2 |
Very, very interesting. Thanks.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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