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How likely are chance resemblances between languages? (2002)

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Re: How likely are chance resemblances between languages? (2002)

#11

Post by angiosperm »

Yet, Ket in central Asia and Navajo in south-central North America are very closely related. Sadly, Ket is close to dead, with only dozens of mostly elderly still fluent. Some suspect it was carried in a migration from Alaska back to Asia.

Languages used in British Columbia and Yukon are in the same family to those, but less similar. It is an example of a common phenomenon, where the extrema of a range retain older features. We see it also in far-west Celt and far-east Tocharian languages. It probably explains how rare genetic features are found in common in isolated South American, Australian, and Indian Ocean refugia, and nowhere between, and in pre-contact eastern US and western Europe haplogroups. Traces between get washed out by later influx.

Re: How likely are chance resemblances between languages? (2002)

#12

Post by mbork_pl »

metaxy2 wrote: post #9
TillE wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite little coincidence is that ending a sentence in "ne" turns it into a question in both Japanese and colloquial German, with exactly the same sense ("isn't it?").

A slight variation of that is even in colloquial English, with "no." As in "we should probably get going, no?"

And in Polish, where people often add a ", nie?" to the end of the sentence, with a similar result.

Re: How likely are chance resemblances between languages? (2002)

#13

Post by jimbosis »

TillE wrote: post #8
__loam wrote: post #5

Finnish and Japanese are fairly similar but weirdly completely unrelated iirc.

My favorite little coincidence is that ending a sentence in "ne" turns it into a question in both Japanese and colloquial German, with exactly the same sense ("isn't it?").

In Latin, adding the enclitic -ne to (generally) the first word of a sentence makes that sentence a yes/no question.

See https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1... , especially paragraph #332.

Re: How likely are chance resemblances between languages? (2002)

#14

Post by angiosperm »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #4

I remember some anecdote of an Australian language, where the word for "dog" was pronounced more or less as in English, just "dog". At some point it was proven that the English word could not have possibly been transmitted to those people, it was just some sequence of phonemes that had been arbitrarily assigned to label the animal. I can't find a good link for this. Given enough languages spoken by enough people, see…

The description of the Pleiades as "seven sisters" in Australia and Europe is a similar case. People used to think it meant the story had been carried so long, and so far. But 50,000 years seems to be too long.

That said, it has been tens of millennia since a seventh star could be distinguished. People today count six, but it is described as seven most places.

And, the story of the husband who visits the land of the dead and fails to retrieve his wife really was carried all the way to North America. That is probably "only" 15,000 years, from one of the later waves of migration.

Re: How likely are chance resemblances between languages? (2002)

#15

Post by bombela »

mbork_pl wrote: post #12
metaxy2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A slight variation of that is even in colloquial English, with "no." As in "we should probably get going, no?"

And in Polish, where people often add a ", nie?" to the end of the sentence, with a similar result.

And in french with "non ?" at the end. Often pronounced "nanh" (english), "nan" (french). A more familiar form of "non".

On va prendre de l'essence d'abord, nan?

We're going to get gas first, right?

Re: How likely are chance resemblances between languages? (2002)

#17

Post by angiosperm »

meepmorp wrote: post #16
__loam wrote: post #5

Finnish and Japanese are fairly similar but weirdly completely unrelated iirc.

how are Finnish and Japanese fairly similar? i'm curious what you see that would make them so.

The phoneme mix is uncannily similar.

Re: How likely are chance resemblances between languages? (2002)

#18

Post by rafram »

angiosperm wrote: post #11

Yet, Ket in central Asia and Navajo in south-central North America are very closely related. Sadly, Ket is close to dead, with only dozens of mostly elderly still fluent. Some suspect it was carried in a migration from Alaska back to Asia. Languages used in British Columbia and Yukon are in the same family to those, but less similar. It is an example of a common phenomenon, where the extrema of a range retain older f…

May be related, not “are very closely related.” There are some cognates between the two families. But no two languages that were separated for 10,000 years are very closely related.

Re: How likely are chance resemblances between languages? (2002)

#20

Post by angiosperm »

rafram wrote: post #18
angiosperm wrote: post #11

Yet, Ket in central Asia and Navajo in south-central North America are very closely related. Sadly, Ket is close to dead, with only dozens of mostly elderly still fluent. Some suspect it was carried in a migration from Alaska back to Asia. Languages used in British Columbia and Yukon are in the same family to those, but less similar. It is an example of a common phenomenon, where the extrema of a range retain older f…

May be related, not “are very closely related.” There are some cognates between the two families. But no two languages that were separated for 10,000 years are very closely related.

They share grammatical peculiarities lost in intermediate languages. Navajo introduced to Ket elders say they are almost inter-intelligible.
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