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How we know languages like proto-Indo-European existed [video]

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Re: How we know languages like proto-Indo-European existed [video]

#41

Post by rlpb »

mcv wrote: post #36
jagrsw wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is increasingly using the singular 'they' as a workaround, since alternative options like 've,' 'ze,' 'zhe,' and 'xer' didn't gain traction. This comes with its own set of issues—initially, it was a bit disorienting for me, and even now it often requires a mental pause to parse what the speaker is referring to. I'd welcome a more authoritarian approach here: globally adopt a new pronoun, go through a transiti…

English is definitely leading in terms of genderlessness, but that advantage is more than offset by its complete detachment between spelling and pronunciation. It would be nice to have a language with sensible spelling/pronunciation but no gender.

> It would be nice to have a language with sensible spelling/pronunciation

I get the impression that this is impossible in the long term because pronunciation tends to drift, but spelling is more rigid, so over time they mismatch.

Re: How we know languages like proto-Indo-European existed [video]

#42

Post by qwytw »

bobinux wrote: post #9

Recently found this video https://youtu.be/bzRxSVK7qIU where Sanskrit was being compared to Lithuanian. To think, that such geographically distant languages are so similar, as Lithuanian is one of the most well preserved languages in Europe. To get a grasp of what PIE sounded, the closest you can get in Europe is by listening to Lithuanian (especially the older dialects of it)

> the closest you can get in Europe is by listening to Lithuanian (especially the older dialects of it)

I'm not sure that's true. I mean Baltic languages are generally considered to be one of the last to diverge from PIE but that doesn't mean the sound that similar. They preserve many archaic features but there has also been a lot of innovation over thousands of years (especially considering that modern standard Lithuanian is to some degree a constructed language).

While certain grammatical features like almost the whole case system have been preserved too a higher degree than in other IE languages. Lithuanian has still lost laryngeals, aspirated stops etc. which means it sounds very differently to what proto Indo-European might have sounded.

Re: How we know languages like proto-Indo-European existed [video]

#44

Post by vidarh »

littlestymaar wrote: post #34
totetsu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard this was down to Viking raiders moving into the anglish isles and not wanting to be bothered with all that complicated stuff

Given that the Viking's language was itself fairly complex pronoun-wise[1] I suspect that this is an urban legend. [1]: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Old_Norse/Pronouns

And indeed, modern Scandinavian languages have retained gendered nouns.

Though it's gradually being watered down. Eg. in Norwegian Bokmål (there are two official variants of Norwegian, Bokmål is the dominant one) you can now mostly choose whether to use feminine or masculine forms for a noun if a word takes either (but you can't do this for neuter), e.g. en sol (masculine; a sun) vs. ei sol (feminine; a sun) are both valid as long as you're consistent (combining "en sol" (m; a sun) with "sola" (f; the sun) in the same text, mixing genders, is frowned upon, though some of us do that intentionally - "solen" (m; the sun) sounds to stuffy/posh to me, but I prefer "en sol" to "ei sol").

Re: How we know languages like proto-Indo-European existed [video]

#45

Post by qwytw »

troupo wrote: post #5
h4zel wrote: post #3

PIE is fascinating. I desperately wish we knew more about that culture

IMO we know too much (though obviously still too little) about PIE and not enough about non-PIE languages, and I find those much more interesting.

The problem is that there is very little material to work with because all non-PIE languages besides Basque have been lost and what little we have of Tyrsenian (and to an even much lesser Tartessian and some others) is really insufficient to make any substantial claims about their origins or shared features.

Re: How we know languages like proto-Indo-European existed [video]

#46

Post by littlestymaar »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #39
mcv wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is definitely leading in terms of genderlessness, but that advantage is more than offset by its complete detachment between spelling and pronunciation. It would be nice to have a language with sensible spelling/pronunciation but no gender.

> its complete detachment between spelling and pronunciation. Whose dialect are you going to choose to render phonetically? Mine from the West Country, or that of my friends from Newcastle? Will you standardise on short a in castle (Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England) or long a in castle (Restormel Castle, Cornwall)? Or should each person just write phonetically so that we have millions of idiolects?

Or you do it the French IIIème République way: you crush all linguistic diversity[0] from your country and standardize it all around the way it's spoken in London.

Also, in English there's so much detachment from spelling to pronunciation than even choosing to write it down like a random[1] dialect would be an improvement: the problem with English isn't so much about “long a” vs “short a”, it's about “through tough thorough thought, though”.

[0]: sure there's still some pronunciation differences between parts of France, but not much. And it has very little consequence on the spelling/pronunciation relationship.

[1]: in practice, it could be the most commonly spoken dialect, or the dialect that has the most pronunciation in common with others).

Re: How we know languages like proto-Indo-European existed [video]

#47

Post by gumby »

jagrsw wrote: post #32
littlestymaar wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is already a good progress in that direction, in many (most?) European languages we have gendered nouns for everything, no matter how nonsensical it is. ( la baguette / le pain).

English is increasingly using the singular 'they' as a workaround, since alternative options like 've,' 'ze,' 'zhe,' and 'xer' didn't gain traction. This comes with its own set of issues—initially, it was a bit disorienting for me, and even now it often requires a mental pause to parse what the speaker is referring to. I'd welcome a more authoritarian approach here: globally adopt a new pronoun, go through a transiti…

> initially, [they as a singular pronoun] was a bit disorienting for me, and even now it often requires a mental pause to parse what the speaker is referring to.

If it makes you feel better, the use of “you” as both singular and plural pronouns did not become universal until the 60s (thanks to TV amd some school rules); thee and thou remained common in northern regions of England, particularly around Yorkshire, into the 1940s. Yet you use it today without thinking about it.

And I notice the singular “they” in Jane Austin; likely it well precedes her usage as well.

Re: How we know languages like proto-Indo-European existed [video]

#48

Post by gumby »

astrange wrote: post #16

I think all the focus on PIE derivatives is boring and we should get Europeans some better languages without pointless features like noun genders.

If you don’t like the use of two or three grammatical genders, Japanese would like to have a word with you (so to speak).

There are a lot different classifier systems in language around the world; gender is just a small example.

All these mechanisms are kinds of ECC.

Re: How we know languages like proto-Indo-European existed [video]

#49

Post by gumby »

mcv wrote: post #36
jagrsw wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is increasingly using the singular 'they' as a workaround, since alternative options like 've,' 'ze,' 'zhe,' and 'xer' didn't gain traction. This comes with its own set of issues—initially, it was a bit disorienting for me, and even now it often requires a mental pause to parse what the speaker is referring to. I'd welcome a more authoritarian approach here: globally adopt a new pronoun, go through a transiti…

English is definitely leading in terms of genderlessness, but that advantage is more than offset by its complete detachment between spelling and pronunciation. It would be nice to have a language with sensible spelling/pronunciation but no gender.

The fact that English preserves the root bindings in so many cases often makes it easier to figure out what a new word means when you encounter it in text. Just writing the sound would abandon this valuable tool.

Anyway, writing the sound just helps the beginning reader. When you read flowing text you don’t actually read the words aloud in your head, letter by letter.

Re: How we know languages like proto-Indo-European existed [video]

#50

Post by gumby »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #39
mcv wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is definitely leading in terms of genderlessness, but that advantage is more than offset by its complete detachment between spelling and pronunciation. It would be nice to have a language with sensible spelling/pronunciation but no gender.

> its complete detachment between spelling and pronunciation. Whose dialect are you going to choose to render phonetically? Mine from the West Country, or that of my friends from Newcastle? Will you standardise on short a in castle (Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England) or long a in castle (Restormel Castle, Cornwall)? Or should each person just write phonetically so that we have millions of idiolects?

And then since pronunciation shifts, you’ll periodically want to have international treaties adjusting spelling, hyphenation, capitalization and other rules, as the German-speakers have done.

Or freeze it once and for all as the French have chosen to do?

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