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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]

#81

Post by PeterisP »

badcppdev wrote: post #72
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)

So many people don't really like the word 'closest'. I thought your comment was very clear.

I think the main point being made is that 'closest' doesn't necessarily imply 'close'; that the closest living relative is still reasonably distant.

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

#82

Post by PeterisP »

qwytw wrote: post #45
troupo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even in Europe we have Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian as reasonably large non-indoeuropean languages; Maltese as an example of a Semitic EU language, and of course Turkic languages are also right there.

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

#83

Post by Tagbert »

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

The problem was that the pronouns and declensions didn’t match. Since this was a case of large numbers of adults learning a new language, they just learned enough to get by and didn’t bother with the complicated bits.

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

#84

Post by astrange »

edgyquant wrote: post #80
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.

Gender nouns are not pointless features.

Don't know what a gender noun is, but it sounds different from a noun gender.

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

#85

Post by tomjakubowski »

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.

Eh, gendered nouns are kinda helpful in spoken language. It's an extra bit of redundancy which can help distinguish similar-sounding words in noisy environs. Same deal with verb conjugations and adjective declensions.

Granted they don't have much of a point in written word, at least not today when writing is easy to preserve digitally without accumulating errors over time. (No smudges making it hard to make out a word)

I really do wonder though how English seemingly uniquely in I-E languages ended up dropping those features, for the most part.

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

#86

Post by astrange »

gumby wrote: post #48
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.

I'm well aware, but kanji and pitch accents are a lot cooler than remembering whether a table is male, female or neuter.

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

#87

Post by astrange »

gumby wrote: post #47
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…

> 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…

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

It's in Shakespeare.

(If you go back to Chaucer, "girl" is gender neutral for a child.)

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

#88

Post by retrac »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #85
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.

Eh, gendered nouns are kinda helpful in spoken language. It's an extra bit of redundancy which can help distinguish similar-sounding words in noisy environs. Same deal with verb conjugations and adjective declensions. Granted they don't have much of a point in written word, at least not today when writing is easy to preserve digitally without accumulating errors over time. (No smudges making it hard to make out a wor…

> I really do wonder though how English seemingly uniquely

Not uniquely. Just within the Germanic languages, Afrikaans, an offshoot of Dutch, is without gender, in a way similar to English.

And there are others in the IE family that have lost gender. Persian is a notable example.

English lost its noun gender right after the Norman conquest. The language underwent rapid and extensive change, different populations merged, dialects flattened, and a lot of vocabulary was borrowed from the new French overlords. Many language structures, other than gender, were also lost at that time. Some have argued English almost underwent a sort of creole effect, where the native grammar of the parent languages is lost, and the next generation invent a new heavily regularized grammar to fill the void. That's going a bit far, I think, still there was a great deal of simplification. The lack of gender in Persian and Afrikaans has a somewhat similar history, in terms of social upheaval/displacement/dialect flattening, having an influence on the loss of gender.

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

#89

Post by gumby »

astrange wrote: post #86
gumby wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm well aware, but kanji and pitch accents are a lot cooler than remembering whether a table is male, female or neuter.

Japanese has tons of classifiers, not just the two or three that come with languages with gender.

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

#90

Post by gumby »

astrange wrote: post #87
gumby wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> And I notice the singular “they” in Jane Austin; likely it well precedes her usage as well. It's in Shakespeare. (If you go back to Chaucer, "girl" is gender neutral for a child.)

That’s a residual germanic influence (Mädchen is still neuter today, while Junge is masculine)
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