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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)

#31
My favorite little cross-language coincidence is how lots of place names up north end in 'vik'.

In the old Viking world, there's Reykjavík, Keflavík, Grindavík, etc in Iceland. Then over in Norway, you've got Larvik, Malvik, Rørvik, etc. In Sweden: Västervik, Valdemarsvik, Örnsköldsvik.

Then in the new world, Greenland has Aasivik and Arsivik. The Eastern part of the Canadian north has has Aquiatulavik and Iqiattavik and Akulivik. Up in the Northwest Territories there's Aklavik and Inuvik. Cross over into Alaska and you'll find Utqiagvik and Kaktovik.

To make it even more interesting, on Russia's north coast you'll find a Nordvik.

Surely there must have been a prehistoric super-culture up North that founded all of these places right? Not so - in Norse, that 'vik' meant cove, and as a seafaring culture they had a lot of settlements on coves. In Inuit and related languages 'vik' means place, so that ended up in a lot of names. Oh, and the Russian Nordvik was just given a Norwegian name.

So no, there almost certainly wasn't extensive linguistic exchange between Vikings and indigenous people of North America. Although, since L'Anse aux Meadows (the one place Norse are known to have been in North America) means Meadows Cove, I think it should be renamed Meadowvik.

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

#32
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have not heard that "inter-intelligible" claim, do you have a link/ citation for it?

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

#33
post #5

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

When I studied this subject in university I was shocked to find out many areas like this are not well understood due to lack of financial incentive to discover it. All that to say there's probably a reason Finnish and Japanese and Spanish are so similar but its not well understood by people in the industry of linguistics yet.

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

#34
post #30
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English English: "innit?"

I wonder if "ent" evolved from "innit" under British colonization (or they both evolved from a common ancestor in British English).

Both probably from "is it not > isn't it" Canadian's have 'eh?' that serves basically the same function.

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

#35
post #8
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?").

Also Portuguese, where "né?" is understood as a contraction of "não é?" ("isn't it?").

I don't mean to say that this is a coincidence as far as the European languages go; negation words with N are often a shared inheritance from Indo-European

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur...

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

#36
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trinidadian English: "ent?" I think there's an innate human desire to modify the sentence to make it a question with as few additional sounds as possible.

English English: "innit?"

In some places pronounced "ennit?"

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

#37
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?").

Same in Russian, no? (or should I say ne?)

And in Portuguese, né?

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

#38
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'll bet a keg of beer that they are not in fact mutually intelligible.

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

#40
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if "ent" evolved from "innit" under British colonization (or they both evolved from a common ancestor in British English).

Both probably from "is it not > isn't it" Canadian's have 'eh?' that serves basically the same function.

Americans (and I'd imagine the British) have "eh?" too, it's just not as common ("not bad, eh?"). Among Americans I feel like I've seen it more in casual written online conversation than in speech.
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