protolanguages

Imagining evolving dialect maps across eons in your head, even the surface notion of it, may be exceedingly more complex a thought than one is used to, but it also gives us a more realistic picture of how languages and protolanguages have evolved.

The PIE and Pre-PIE pronominal system from the perspective of a wave model 2009

So why do we keep thinking that PIE or other theorized protolanguages must?

The PIE and Pre-PIE pronominal system from the perspective of a wave model 2009

Imagining evolving dialect maps across eons in your head, even the surface notion of it, may be exceedingly more complex a thought than one is used to, but it also gives us a more realistic picture of how languages and protolanguages have evolved.

Archive 2009-08-01 2009

Nonetheless, some ideas, even those concerning protolanguages and prehistory, can be immediately rejected with available evidence.

Archive 2009-10-01 2009

"Imagining evolving dialect maps across eons in your head, even the surface notion of it, may be exceedingly more complex a thought than one is used to, but it also gives us a more realistic picture of how languages and protolanguages have evolved."

The PIE and Pre-PIE pronominal system from the perspective of a wave model 2009

Then towards the end, as the article gains antilogical momentum, we arrive at the pièce de resistance: "Dr. Ruhlen, in an interview, conceded that reconstructed protolanguages were 'educated guesses based on a range of meanings and a range of sounds,' but he said that many critics are often unfamiliar with the Nostratic methods, in part because most of the research has been published in Russian."

More fun from the NY Times 2009

We're told that "Dr. Shevoroshkin complains that out of ignorance and skepticism scholars in the United States are discouraged from pursuing Nostratic techniques for reconstructing protolanguages."

More fun from the NY Times 2009

Nonetheless, some ideas, even those concerning protolanguages and prehistory, can be immediately rejected with available evidence.

Nipping the PIE ergative *-s theory right in the bud 2009

So why do we keep thinking that PIE or other theorized protolanguages must?

Archive 2009-08-01 2009

Even from a Nostratic point of view, it's nonsense because PIE is likely to be closer to Uralic and Altaic than any other language group identified as 'Nostratic' and yet their respective protolanguages are securely placed to the north and east of the Black Sea.

A modification of Indo-Aegean, plus some new grammatical ideas on Minoan 2009