Category Archives: Indo-European

by | November 17, 2017 · 11:25 PM

The Case for Splitting off Multiple English Dialects as Separate Languages

Here (on Italian dialects – actually many of which are separate languages).

One can make an excellent case that AAVE (Ebonics), Bayou/Cajun English, Deep South English, Appalachian English, New York English, Newfoundland English, and of course Jamaican creole and Scots are separate languages. Even Scottish English and Geordie probably qualify.

A recent study found only 54% intelligibility for Standard English speakers of Geordie. The speakers were L2 English learners in the Czech Republic, but they scored 100% on the “home” test, which was a test of a US television English. Another study found 42% intelligibility of Scots for native speakers of US English. Having heard Hard Scots spoken by the Scottish underclass, I would say my intelligibility of it was ~5-10% at best or possibly even less. It was almost as bad as listening to something like Greek, and one got the feeling listening to it that you were actually listening to some foreign tongue like, say, Greek.

At any rate, 42% and 54% very well qualify both Scots and Geordie as separate languages. Scots is already split, and it sure would be nice to split Geordie, but to say people would get mad is an understatement.

Scots and Jamaican creole are already split off. There is a lie going around the intellectual circles that it is still controversial in Linguistics whether Scots and Jamaican Creole are separate languages. In fact it is not controversial at all.

I have been listening to English my whole life as an American, and I still cannot understand Bayou speech, hard Southern English, Newfoundland English or the hard forms of Appalachian English or New York English. There are some very weird forms of English spoken on the US Atlantic coastal islands that cannot be understood by anyone not from there, or at least not by me. Gulla English in South Carolina is already split as a creole.

Generally the criterion we use is mutual intelligibility. Also if you can’t pick it up pretty quickly, it’s a separate language.

A speaker of hard New York English came to my mother’s school a while back, and no one could understand him. They still could not understand him after three months of listening to him – this is how you know you are dealing with a separate language. He finally learned how to speak California English, and then he was understood.

I have been listening to hard British English my whole life, and I still cannot understand them. I even had a British girlfriend for 1.5 years, and I still could not understand her on the phone. She went to my parents house for dinner, stayed a couple of hours, and my brother said he didn’t understand a word she said.

You can make an excellent case that the harder forms of British English (or Australian English for that matter) are not the same language as US English. The problem is that if you tried to split them off, everyone would go insane (including a lot of very foolish linguists), and there would be a wild uproar.

Generally we use 90% as the split between language and dialect. Less that that, separate language. More than that, dialect. We use this criterion to split languages from dialects everywhere, yet if we tried to do it for English, the resulting firestorm would be so ferocious that it would not be worth it, but it would be perfectly valid scientifically. Even the very well-validated split of Scots has driven the English-speaking world half-nuts.

I actually have a post in my drafts where I split English into ~10-15 different languages, but I have been terrified to post it. My post splitting German into 137 different languages did not go over well with the Net linguists (who are mostly loudmouths, fools, cranks, and idiots), although a major Germanist, a professor at a big university in Europe wrote me when I was only at 90 languages and said, “I think you are right!” Still, if I try to split English, I may ignite one Hell of a damned firestorm, and I’m just too chicken.

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by | November 17, 2017 · 11:17 PM

Fake Controversies, Fake Settled Questions, and Ideological Authoritarianism in Modern Linguistics, with an Emphasis on Mutual Intelligibility and the Dialect/Language Question

There is a lie going around that the dialect/language question is controversial in Linguistics. It really isn’t. Most linguists have a pretty good idea of where to draw the line. If you don’t believe me, study the internals of the Summer Institute of Linguistics change request forms for languages. The field is a lot more uniform on this question than the cranks think. Hardly anyone thinks Valencian is a separate language. Romagnolo and Emilian were split with zero controversy. All it took was a few authoritative statements by the experts in these varieties to settle the question. There were 5-10 experts writing in on Valencian and they were all in agreement. In other words, the language dialect question is what is known as a fake controversy.

Really the only controversy about this question comes from nationalists and language activists.

Sadly, many linguists are nationalists, and their work has been poisoned by their ideology for a long time now. Some of the worst ones of all are in Europe. Linguistics in the Balkans and Poland has been badly damaged by nationalist linguists for a long time, with no sign of things getting better. Similar nonsense is going on in of all places ultra-PC Denmark and Sweden. Bornholmian and Southeast Jutnish should have been split from Danish long ago. In fact, Jutnish was split, but Danish nationalist linguists pathetically had it removed. The many langues d’oil have never been listed and probably never will be. No doubt this is due to the state of Linguistics in ultra-nationalistic France. There are easily 10-15+ langues d’oil that could be split off.

Greek linguist nationalists have raised their ugly heads over splits in Macro-Greek.

Bulgarian Linguistics is all nationalist and has been lost in retardation forever now. No, Macedonian is not a Bulgarian dialect.

There have been some ugly and ridiculous fights in the Baltics especially with Estonian and Latvian, neither of which is a single language. I doubt that Estonian and Latvian linguists are comporting themselves well here given the fanatical nationalism that overwhelms both lands.

There are easily 350-400 language inside of Sinitic or Chinese according to the estimate of the ultimate Sinologist Jerry Norman. The real figure is clearly closer to 1,000-2,000 separate languages. Chinese nationalism is mandatory for anyone doing Sinitic linguistics. No one wants to bring down the wrath of the Chinese government by pulling the curtain on their big lie that Chinese is one language. I am amazed that SIL even split Chinese into 14 languages without getting deluged with death threats.

Arabic is clearly more than one language, and SIL now has it split into 35 languages.  This is one odd case where they may have erred by splitting too much. That’s probably too many, but no one can even do any work in this area, since Arabists and especially Arabic speakers keep insisting, often violently, that Arabic is a single language. Never mind that they routinely can’t understand each other. We have Syrians and Yemenis at my local store and no, the Syrian Arabic speakers cannot understand hard Yemeni Arabic, sorry. Some of the Yemeni Arabic  speakers have even whispered conspiratorially in my ear when the others were not around that speakers of different Yemeni Arabic varieties often cannot even understand each other and that’s not even split by SIL. I have a feeling that the Arabic situation is more like Chinese than not.

A Swedish nationalist wiped out several well documented separate languages inside of Macro-Swedish simply by making a few dishonest change request forms. SIL pathetically fell for it.

Occitan language activists wiped out the very well-supported split of Occitan into six separate languages based on ideology. They are trying to resurrect Occitan, and they think this will only work if there is one Occitan language with many dialects under it. Splitting it up into six or more languages dooms the tongue. So this was a political argument masquerading as a linguistic one. SIL fell for it again. Pathetic.

No one has talked much about these matters in the field, but a man named Harold Hammerstrom has written some excellent notes about them. He also takes the language/dialect question very seriously and has proposed more scientific ways of doing the splitting.

SIL was recently granted the ability to give out new ISO codes for languages, and since then, SIL has become quite conservative, lumping varieties everywhere in sight. This is because lumping is always the easy way out, as conservatives love lumping in everything from Classification to Historical Linguistics, and the field has been taken over by radical conservatives for some time now. Splitters are kooks, clowns and laughing stocks. One gets the impression that SIL is terrified to split off new tongues for fear of bad PR.

As noted above, the language/dialect question is not as controversial in the field as Net linguist cranks would have you believe. SIL simply decides whatever they decide, and all the linguists just shrug their shoulders and go back to Optimality Theory, threatening to kill each other over Indo-European reconstructions, scribbling barely readable SJW sociolinguistic blather, or whatever it is they are crunching their brains about.

SIL grants an ISO code or refuses to grant one, and that’s that. No ISO code, no language. The main problem is that they refuse to split many valid languages mostly out of PC fear of causing a furor. Most of the opposition to splitting off new languages comes from linguistic hacks and cranks who exist for the most part on the Internet.

Most real linguists don’t seem to care very much. I know this because I talk to real linguists all the time. When it comes to the dialect/language split, most of them find it mildly intriguing, but hardly anyone is set off. You tell them that some dialect has now been split off as a separate language or two languages merged into one, and they just perk up their ears and say, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Sometimes they shrug their shoulders and say, “They (SIL) are saying this is a separate language now,” as if they really don’t care one way or another.

Linguists definitely get hot under the collar about some things, but not about the dialect/language question which is regarded more as a quizzical oddity. Most linguists furthermore care nothing at all about the mutual intelligibility debate, which at any rate was resolved long ago by SIL way back in the 1950’s. See the influential book by Cassad written way back then for the final word on the science of mutual intelligibility. Some enterprising linguists are finally starting to take mutual intelligibility seriously, but even they are being much too wishy-washy and unsciency about it. A lot of very silly statements  are made like “there is no good, hard scientific way to measure mutual intelligibility, so all figures are guesswork.”

There’s no need for these theoretical shields or hyper-hedging because no one cares. No one in the field other than a few nutcases and kooks  on the Internet even gives two damns about this question in the first place. The mutual intelligibility question is actually much less controversial in the field that the linguist kook loudmouths on the Net would have you believe.

We have more important things to fight about, like Everett’s resurrecting of the hated Sapir-Worf Hypothesis, Chomsky’s Universal Grammar (defended pathetically by the Old Guard and under attack by the Everett crowd who everyone hates), not to mention Altaic, Joseph Greenberg’s poor, regularly pummeled ghost, and mass comparison in general.

The field is full of many a silly and pretty lie. One for instance is that Linguistics rejected the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis long ago, and now it is regarded as a laughing stock. Actually that’s not true. Really a bunch of bullies got together and announced very arrogantly that Sapir-Whorf was crap, and then it become written in stone the way a lot of nonsense our field believes does.

If you back over the papers that “proved” this matter, it turns out that they never proved one anything thing. They just said that they proved Sapir-Whorf was nonsense, and everyone fell for it or just got in line like they were supposed to.

Not to mention that Linguistics is like an 8th Grade playground. Let’s put it this way. If you advocate for Sapir-Whorf in academia, I pray for your soul. You also damn well better have tenure. I don’t know how anyone advocates for Altaic these days. I would never advocate for Altaic or even any remotely controversial historical linguistics hypothesis without tenure. The field is out for blood, and they burn heretics at the stake all the time. We’ve probably incinerated more wrong thinkers than the Inquisition by now.

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by | October 27, 2017 · 12:25 AM

Did Liebnitz Discover Indo-European?

The language or dialect of the ancient Goths is very different from present-day Germanic, although it draws from the same source. Ancient Gaulish was even more different, to judge from its closest relative, which is Welsh, Cornish and Breton. But Irish is still more different and displays the traces of a very antique British, Gaulish and Germanic tongue.

However these languages all come from one source and can be considered to be alterations of one and the same language, which could be called Celtic. In the Antiquity, Germanic and Gaulish people were called Celts, and if one tries to understand the origins of Celtic, Latin and Greek, which have many roots in common with Germanic or Celtic languages, one may hypothesize that this is due to the common origin of all these peoples descended from the Scyths, who came from the Black Sea, crossed the Danube and the Vistula Rivers, of whom one part went to Greece, and the other formed Germanic and Gaulish people. This is a consequence of the hypothesis that Europeans came from Asia.” [original in French]

– Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais sur l’entendement Humain, 1764.

Change a few things here and there, and you have Sir William Jones famous speech in Calcutta in 1876, 112 years after this was written.

More than anything else, I suppose this just goes to show us that most great theories have one or often more intellectual precursors.

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by | August 30, 2017 · 9:43 PM

Excellent Proof of the Aryan Invasion Theory

From here.

Aryan invasion

Around 1500 BC, the Indus civilization came, after 2,000 years of prosperity, to a comparatively abrupt end. Conclusive evidence shows that the reason for this decline, in fact the sole reason for it, was an invasion by highly barbaric Aryans. They invaded, destroying the Indus cities and exterminating the native peoples.

1. Archaeological Evidence

1.1 Thick Ash Layers

Thick ash layers occur in the upper strata of many Indus cities. At Nal the last phase of the Zhob-ware was burnt down so much that the mound is known as the Sohr Damb, or the Red Mound, from the reddening of fire. At Dabar Kot the upper 6 feet show 4 thick ash layers that indicate repeated destruction by conflagration and the layers were is associated with the last settlements of Harappa [Piggott 215].

At the Rana Ghundai Mound everywhere overlying the foundation level of the RG IIIc phase there are pockets of ash. Above the RG IIIc phase the pottery is a markedly different from the preceding type, the RG IV phase pottery being painted with coarse bands. RG IV was again destroyed by fire, and the RG V phase is marked by another change in pottery. The RG V pottery is unpainted and contains patterns in relief [Piggott p. 214].

1.2 Fractured Skulls

At Mohenjo-daro, Harappa and Chanhu-daro, skeletons/fragments of skeletons indicate violent massacres in the final stages of the cities’ histories. Huddled skeletons of persons murdered in the streets indicate that the mass deaths were not due to poisonings etc. but were violent [Piggott p. 145].

1.3 Aryan Weaponry

Copper ax-adzes are intrusive at Harappan sites (Harappa, Shahi-tump and Chanhu-daro) but are similar to those found at North Persian sites (Hissar III, Shah Tepe, Turang Tepe) and Akkadian sites. At Assur Sialk B cemetery, the specimens are probably from as late as the 9th century BC) [Piggott p.228].

Swords 1.5 foot long and strengthened at the mid-rib are non-Harappan and are found only in the later strata of the cities. These swords at Mohenjo-daro have a tang and rivet to hold the handle exactly as found in Palestine, where such implements are associated with the Hyksos 1800-1500 BC [Piggott p. 229].

Copper harpoons found in the Indus Valley are similar to those found in Europe and elsewhere in Asia [Piggott p. 237].

1.4 Flooding by Aryan Destruction of Indus Dams

Signs of flooding were discovered in the Indus cities, mainly in the form of silt deposits. It was considered that this flooding could explain the fall of the Indus cities and this was considered the most viable alternative to Aryan Invasion. It was subsequently discovered, however, that flooding had been pinpointed as an alternative explanation to the Aryan Invasion Theory several decades before the actual discovery of the flooding. It is now accepted that the flooding was caused by the Aryans’ destruction of the Indus dam and irrigation system and was merely another aspect of the genocide.

+ He smote Vrtra who encompassed the waters [RgV VI.20.2].

+ He smote Vrtra who enclosed the waters, like a tree with the bolt [RgV II.14.2].

+ He is referred to as `conquering the waters’ (apsujit), which is his prime attribute.

+ Indra let loose the streams after slaying Vrtra [RgV IV.19.8].

+ He cleaves the mountain, making the streams flow [RgV I.57.6; X.89.7], even with the sound of his bolt [RgV VI.27; VI.57.6; II.14.2; IV.19.8; VI.20.2; VI.27.1; X.89.7. ST 368].

In Sanskrit, `vrtra’ is an `obstacle’, and denotes a barrage or blockage [ISISH 70-71]. It is thus a word for `dam’. Dams now called Gebr-band are found on many watercourses of the western parts of the Indus region. Aryans shattered the dam system of the Indus, leading to silt deposits in Mohenjo-daro [S & T 369].

+ When he [Indra] laid open the great mountain, he let loose the torrents and slew the Danava, he set free the pent up springs, the udder of the mountain. [RgV V.32.1-2].

+ He slew the Danava, shattered the great mountain, broke open the well, set free the pent up waters. [RgV I.57.6; V.33.1].

+ He releases the streams which are like imprisoned cows [RgV I.61.10].

+ He won the cows and soma and made the 7 rivers flow. [RgV I.32.12; II.12.12].

+ He releases the imprisoned waters [RgV I.57.6; I.103.2].

+ He dug out channels for the streams with his bolt [RgV II.15.3], let the flood of waters flow into the sea. [RgV II.19.3].

+ He caused the waters pent up by Vrtra to flow [RgV III.26.6; IV.17.1; McDonnell; S & T 368-9 quoting McDonnell].

Another verse explicitly mentions him as a destroyer of dams: rinag rodhamsi krtrimani = “he removed artificial barriers” [RgV 2.15.8].

Now, rodhas = “dam” elsewhere in the Rig Veda and in later Sanskrit [S & T 369]. The above evidence taken directly from the Rig Veda and not from any secondary source is sufficient to implicate the Aryans as the destroyers of the dam systems of the ancient Indus.

1.5 Aryan Settlements

Aryan settlements occur atop the destroyed cities towards the end of the civilization. They are primitive brick structures made of material taken from the ruins of the preceding towns.

1.3 Aryan Weaponry

Aryan weaponry, including the horse and chariot, occur towards the end of the Indus cities’ history.

2. Anthropological

2.1 Northern Dravidians

Several Dravidian tribes still inhabit isolated parts of northern India. The Brahui inhabit parts of Baluchistan and still speak a Dravidian language. The Bhils inhabit parts of southern Rajasthan. The black Gonds inhabit parts of central India about the Vindhyans.

2.2 The Black Sudroids ; Dravidians

The Aryans and Dravidians today still retain by and large their original features. The Aryans have fair-pale skin, leptorrhine (thin) noses and straight hair. The Dravidians have broad noses, curly-wavy hair and dark-black skin. [Winters;* Risley].

2.3 White Indo-Aryan Caucasoids

The Indo-Aryans belong to the Caucasoid or white race and are very similar to Latins. The Indo-Aryan languages belong to the Indo-European family of languages. Racially the Indo-Aryans possess white to fair skin, thin noses and lips and straight hair.

3. Literary

3.1 Sanskrit Literature

References to an Aryan invasion abound in Sanskrit literature.

The ancient singer praises the god who “destroyed the Dasyans and protected the Aryan color” [Rg.V. III.34.9; Ann. 114] and “the thunderer who bestowed on his white friends the fields, bestowed the sun, bestowed the waters” [Rg.V. I.100.18; Ann. 114].

There are numerous references to “the black skin” Krishnam Vacham [Rg.V. IX.41.1, Sama Veda I.491, II.242; Ann. 114] which is mentioned with abhorrence. Again “stormy gods who rush on like furious bulls and scatter the black skin” [Rg.V. IX.73.5]. The singers mention “the black skin, the hated of Indra”, being swept out of heaven [RgV. IX.73.5]: “Indra protected in battle the Aryan worshiper, he subdued the lawless for Manu, he conquered the black skin” [Rg.V. I.130.8; Ann.114].

The sacrificer poured out thanks to his god for “scattering the slave bands of black descent”, and for stamping out ” the vile Dasyan color” [Rg.V. II.20.7, II.12.4; Ann. 115]. See Dasam varnam adharam [Rg.V. II.12.4; Muir part I, p.43, II, p.284, 323 etc.; Ann. 114 ff].

Rakshas are aboriginals

  • Ravana = Rakshasendra [Ann. 111].
  • Rakshas = Ceylon aborigines according to Chinese travelers and Singhalese chronicles – Rakko or Yakko in the vernacular [An. 111].

Destruction of Cities

The Aryan gods are proudly presented by the Vedic “sages” as the destroyers of cities. Of these Indra, later considered an incarnation of the God Vishnu, is the prime culprit. Indra is called Puroha or Purandhara, `sacker of cities’ [S & T 366]. Indra overthrew 100 Puras made of stone (asmanmayi) for his worshiper Divodasa [RgV 4.30.20], evidently belonging to Sambara who is a Dasa (non-Aryan/demon) of the mountain [RgV 6.26.5] [Chanda; S & T p.364]

No regard was shown to the life of non-Aryans.

An Aryan poet says:

Ye mighty ones [Asvins]: what do you do there; why do you stay there among the people who are held in high esteem through not offering sacrifices; ignore them, destroy the life of the Panis [RgV I.83.3; S & T 365].

Indra’s Destruction of Harappa: The Vedic Harappa Hymn

The famous Harappa hymn of the Rig Veda describes with praise Indra’s destruction of Harappa:

“In aid of Abhyavartin Cayamana, Indra destroyed the seed of Virasakha. At Hariyupiyah he smote the vanguard of the Vrcivans, and the rear fled frighted” [Rg.V. XXVII.5].

This Hariyupiyah is likely to be the Harappa of the Indus Valley.

3.2 Dravidian Literature

The date of 1500 BC corresponds to the end of a sangam period when invasions by barbarians occurred.

4. Sociological

4.1 Caste System

The caste system is another`fossil’ of the Aryan Conquest, with the lower and exterior castes representing the aboriginal inhabitants that managed to survive the Aryan slaughter. Exactly the same occurred in other parts of the world where one race has subjugated others, e.g.. Latin America (Iberians conquered Aboriginals ), USA (Anglo-Saxons ruling over Hispanics and Afro-Americans), etc. These include the Adivasis (aboriginal tribals), the Dalits ( semi-settled aboriginals ), and the Sudras (the lowest caste). However, some of the Sudras were imported under Muslim rule from Southern India.

The caste system consists of several different “varnas” (Sans. “colors”), three of which are Aryan. The lowest caste, the Shudra, consists of aboriginals, as well as the exterior untouchable castes.

4.2 Sati and Child Marriage

The Aryans introduced tremendous restrictions on the life of women, including sati and child marriage. According to Aryan “Hindu” (i.e.. Vaishnavite) scriptures, a man must marry a maiden one-third his age.

4.3 Cow-Worship

Cow-worship is another feature introduced by the Aryans. This probably arose because the Aryans were nomads and hence required the cow.

5. Theological

5.1 Shiva and Shakti

Siva is the god of the Dravidians. Vishnu is the god of the Aryans. The star-calendar used by the Aryan-Vaishnavites today was adopted from the Semito-Dravidian Indus Valley civilization, since it is not referred to in the Rig Veda or Avesta. It was compiled when the Indus Valley was at its peak, before the Aryans came to India [Parpola].

The Indus people practiced astronomy because the streets are oriented towards the cardinal directions, presupposing the use of the sun-stick. A seal from Mohenjo-daro depicts an Indus deity with a star on either side of his head in the fashion of the Near East. Inanna-Ishtar, the goddess of love and war, for example, was associated with the planet Venus [Parpola]. This may have led to the cult of worshiping the planets, the astral religion of India.

5.2 Fire Altars

Fire altars occur late towards the Indus cities’ histories. They are primitive in nature, constructed from material from the destroyed Indus cities.

6. Global Aryan Invasions

Aryans invaded several parts of the world, putting an end to various brilliant civilizations. Babylonia was destroyed by Kassites, Hittites and Mittani, Egypt was devastated by the Hyksos, and Minoan culture by the Dorians.

7. Rival Theories

Several other explanations have been put forth to explain the demise of the Indus Civilization besides the Aryan invasion.

These are:

Environmental catastrophes – these include:

  • Comet impact
  • Flooding

Internal Decline – These claim that slavery or some other revolt destroyed the Indus Civilization.

All of these have severe problems, however.

Comet Impact. The problems with this theory are:

  • No crater/craters have been found with an age matching 1500 BC, nor of the requisite size. The size is narrowly constrained, for if the impact was too large, catastrophe would have been global, while if it were too small, the effect would have been negligible.
  • No iridium anomaly, the characteristic of all impacts from the mammoth K/T Chiczulub Crater [Alvarez] to the Sudbury Intrusive, has been found in the Indus valley of the required age.
  • No shocked glasses or tektites with the requisite shock deformation features have been found anywhere near the Indus Valley.

Thus, although a comet explanation for the extinction has been found in Comet Enke, this is a far-fetched theory to say the least. The destruction of several civilizations simultaneously requires a global catastrophe. But some civilizations, e.g.. in Central and South America, and China, survived the 1500 BC discontinuity. Asteroidal impacts tend to leave larger craters and more iridium, so the arguments against this theory apply more forcefully.

Flooding. Undisputed evidence of flooding has been found in the form of silt deposits and a barrage system erected as a defensive measure. Flooding thus remained a serious candidate until it was pointed out that several Vedic scholars noted that the Aryans had destroyed the irrigation and dam system of the Indus. Thus flooding is a natural consequence of Aryan invasion and not an independent mechanism.

Internal Decline

  1. To suppose that after two millennia of stability some internal revolt was the cause behind the downfall is stretching the imagination.
  2. No evidence has been found for this, and when indisputable evidence of violence perpetrated with new weapons exists, this theory disregards excellent evidence.

Other Opponents

Although the following may seem rather harsh, it is necessary to expose the real designs of some of the opponents of one of the most well-established theories of all time.

The opponents of the concept of Aryan invasion fall into two categories:

  1. Aryan Hindu Fanatics
  2. Neo-Nazis

These mostly have ulterior motives. The former oppose any vilification of their “gods” who are implicated in the worst massacres and atrocities recorded in history. They wish to see the Vedas, in actuality the songs of primitive cow-herders, as the repository of all science. The latter do not want to accept that their ancestors perpetrated such crimes. One religious fanatic who opposed the notion of Aryan Invasion during its infancy was Narendra Nath Datta, later known as Vivekananda. All he could do was to vilify honest scholars:

“And what your European pandits say about the Aryan’s sweeping from some foreign land, snatching away the lands of the aboriginals and settling India by exterminating them, is all pure nonsense, foolish talk. Strange, that our Indian scholars too say amen to them, and all these monstrous lies are taught to our boys. This is very bad indeed. In what Veda, in what Sukta, so you find that the Aryans came to India from a foreign country? Where do you get the idea that they slaughtered the wild aborigines? What do you gain by talking such nonsense?” [`Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda’, 1963, p.534-535] [Panda 70].

Another fundamentalist who opposed the notion of Aryan Invasions is Srivastava, who apparently conducted all of his research solely to prove the innocence of the Aryan gods:

Indra, therefore stands completely exonerated.

– Srivastava 441

Later, lacking any scientific evidence whatsoever, he degenerates into vilifying Wheeler himself:

“.. we see him as a brigadier in the British army during WW II, we feel he could not interpret the dubious evidence of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa in any other manner.”

– Srivas 442

A. K. Pateria writes:

“Both Dayananda and Aurobindo refuted in clear terms the historical doctrines of Aryan invasion and struggle of Aryans with Dravidian, which was originated by the Westerners and has even been popularized among a large section of the Indian Historians.” [A.K. Pateria, `Modern Commentators of the Veda’, p.63; Panda 70]

Who this Dayananda was must be fully exposed.

In terms of barbarism, the Aryans were so barbaric that they did not even have a word for brick in Sanskrit [S & T 372; Woolley].

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by | June 26, 2017 · 7:06 PM

How I Determined Intelligibility For Turkic Lects

Steve: This is amazing. Well done. But how can you possibly know the degree of mutual intelligibility between two languages you don’t speak or know if something is a language or dialect when you don’t speak it? That seems strange. How is it worked out?

Linguists don’t speak all these languages we study. We just study languages, we don’t necessarily speak them. This is confused with the archaic use of the word linguist to mean polyglot. Honestly, many linguists do in fact speak more than one language, and quite a few of them have a pretty good knowledge of at least some of the languages that they study. But my mentor speaks only Turkish and English though he studies all Turkic languages. I don’t believe he has ever learned to speak any Turkic lect other than Turkish.

In reference to my paper here.

We are not looking for raw numbers. We just want to know if they can understand each other or not.

A lot of it is from talking to native speakers and also there was a lot of reading papers by other linguists. I also talked to other linguists a lot. Linguists typically simply state if two lects are intelligible or not. Also there is a basic idea among linguists of what the boundary is between a language and a dialect, and I used this knowledge a lot.

Can they understand each other? Yes or no. That’s pretty much about it. Also at some degree of structural difference, we can see the difference between a language and a dialect. It’s a judgement call, but linguists are pretty good at this.

There is a subsection of very loud linguists, mostly on the Internet, who like to screech a lot about this question cannot be answered by answered because of this or that red herring or some odd conundrums that work their way in. The thing is if you ask around enough, you will be able to get around all of the conundrums and you should be able to eventually reconcile all of the divergent responses to get some sort of a holistic or “big picture.” You finally “figure it out.” The answer to the question comes to you in a sort of a “seeing the answer as part of a larger picture” sort of thing.

The worst red herring is this notion that speakers from Group A will lie and say they do not understand speakers of Group B simply because they hate them so much. If this was such a concern, you would have think I would have run into it at some point. A much worse problem were ethnic nationalists who lie and say that they can understand neighboring tongues when they can’t.

The toxin called Pan-Turkism or Turkish ultranationalism comes into play here. It is almost normal for Turks to believe that there is only one Turkic languages, and it is called Turkish. All of the rest of the languages simply do not exist and are dialects of Turkish. I had to deal with regular attacks by extremely aggressive Ataturkists who insisted that any Turk could easily understand any other Turkic language. Actually my adviser told me that my piece would not be popular with the Pan-Turkics at all. I don’t really care as I consider them to be pond scum.

Granted, some of it was quite controversial and I got variable reports on intelligibility for some lects like Siberian Tatar vs. Tatar, the Altai languages, Kazakh vs. Kirghiz, Crimean Tatar vs. Turkish.

Where native speakers differ on such questions, often vociferously, you simply ask enough of them, talk to some experts and try to get a feel for that what best answer to the question is.

Some cases like Gagauz vs. Turkish probably need raw intelligibility testing. That’s the only one that is up in the air right now, but it is up in the air because the lects are so close. Intelligibility between Gagauz and Turkish is somewhere between  70-100%. In other words, they have marginal intelligibility at worst. My Gagauz expert who knows this language better than anyone though feels that Turkish intelligibility of Gagauz is less than 90%, which is where I drew the line at language and dialect.

It is also starting to look like Nogay is a simply a dialect of Kazakh instead of a separate language, but that might be a hard sell.

Some of these are seen as separate languages simply because they are spoken by different ethnies who do not want to be seen as part of the same group. Also they have different literary norms. Karapalkak is just a Kazakh dialect, but the speakers want to say they speak a separate language. Same with Bashkir, which is simply a dialect of Tatar. The case of Kazakh and Kirghiz is more controversial, but even here, we seem to be dealing with one language, yet the two dialects are spoken by different ethnies that have actually differentiated into two separate states, each with their own literary norm. Kazakhs wish to say they speak a language c called Kazakh and Kirghiz wish to say they speak a language called Kirghiz although they are probably really just one language.

We see a similar thing with Czech and Slovak. My recent research has proven that Czech and Slovak are actually a single language. But the dialects are spoken by different ethnic groups who claim different cultures and histories and they have actually divided into two different states, and each has its own literary norm.

It is here, where dialects become languages not via science by via politics, culture, history and sociology, that Weinrich’s famous dictum that “a language is a dialect with an army and a navy” comes into play.

Scientifically, these are all simply dialects of a single tongue but we call them languages for sociological, cultural and political reasons.

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Filed under Altaic, Balto-Slavic, Balto-Slavic-Germanic, Bashkir, Comparitive, Crimean Tatar, Czech, Dialectology, Gagauz, Indo-European, Indo-Hittite, Kazakh, Kipchak, Kyrgyz, Language Classification, Linguistics, Nationalism, Political Science, Slavic, Slovak, Sociolinguistics, Tatar, Turkic, Turkish, Ultranationalism

by | June 25, 2017 · 8:38 AM

A Few Words on Language Endangerment

Carlos Lam: Congrats! However, isn’t language death a rather standard occurrence among societies?

It is, but we linguists don’t really like it. It is quite a debate going on, but the bottom line seems to be that ethnic groups and speaker groups have the right to ownership of their languages. We worry that a lot of speaker groups are being pressured into blowing up their languages prematurely. We like to study these languages and we are not real happy about seeing them vanish into the horizon. On the other hand, is cultural death a natural thing too? Both cultural death and language death are occurring at rates far beyond the normal background rates. English and some of the other major languages are like weapons of mass destruction in taking out languages. You really want a world with one language and one culture? I don’t.

The best position seems to be that speakers have the right to decide the fate of their languages. If speakers wish to continue speaking their languages, then governments and linguists should help them to preserve and continue to develop their languages. Quite a few groups do not seem to care that their languages are going are extinct or they are even driving or drove their languages extinct, and they have the full right to do so. In these cases, we will simply do salvage linguistics. There are many salvage linguistics projects going on in the world today.

You won’t get very far with linguists arguing that language death is a good thing. Most people don’t think so.

Occurring at the same time as language death is a lot of language revitalization. Even fully dead languages are being resurrected from the grave. Also in addition to language death, we are creating new languages all the time. In this piece, I created a total of net 13 new languages. And new languages are occurring on their own.

To give you an example. A group of Crimean Tatars moved from Crimea to Turkey about 200 years ago in the course of the Crimean War. They have been speaking Crimean Tatar in Turkey ever since, for 200 years now. But in that time, Crimean Tatar in Turkey and Crimean Tatar in Ukraine has diverged so much that Turkish Crimean Tatar is now, in my opinion, a fully separate tongue from the Ukrainian language. This is because in Turkey, a lot of Turkish has gone into Turkish Crimean Tatar which is not well understand in the Ukraine. And in the Ukraine, a lot of Russian has gone in which is not well understood in Turkey. Hence, Crimean Tatar speakers in Turkey and Ukraine can no longer understand each other well.

To give you another example, there are many Kazakh speakers in China. However, Kazakh speakers in China can no longer understand Standard Kazakh broadcasts from Kazakhstan because so many Russian loans have gone into Standard Kazakh that it is no longer intelligible with Chinese Kazakh speakers. I learned this too late for my paper, otherwise I would have split Chinese Kazakh off as a separate language.

There are many cases like this.

Further, many languages are being discovered. Sonqori, Western Khalaj, Todzhin, Duha, Dukha and Siberian Tatar are just a few of the new languages that I created. Khorosani Turkic was split into three different languages. Dayi was subsumed into one of the Khorosani Turkic languages. Altai was split from one into five separate languages, but the truth is that it is six languages, not five. Salar was split into Western Salara and Eastern Salar. Ili Turki was eliminated becuase it does not even exist. It is simply a form of Uighur. Kabardian and Balkar, Tatar and Bashkir, Kazakh and Kirghiz were some languages that were eliminated and subsumed into single tongues such as Tatar-Bashkir, Kazakh-Kirghiz, and Kabardian-Balkar. And on and on.

Languages and of course dialects are dying all the time, but new languages are being created by humans and by linguists as we continue our splitting projects. Many lects referred to as dialects are more properly seen as separate languages. Chinese is at least 450 separate languages, only 14 of which are recognized. German may be up to 130 separate languages, only 20 of which are recognized.

There are quite a few more languages to be created out there, but there is a lot of resistance to splitters like me from more conservative linguists and especially from linguistic nationalists. For while Chinese may well be over 1,000 languages, the Chinese government is anti-scientifically insistent that there is but one Chinese language and maybe 2,000 “dialects,” most of which are probably separate languages. The German government is quite resistant to the idea that there is more than one form of German, though I believe Bavarian and Swiss German have official status in Austria and Switzerland.

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Filed under Asia, Balto-Slavic-Germanic, Bashkir, Bavarian, China, Chinese language, Comparitive, Crimean Tatar, Dialectology, Europe, European, German, Germanic, Government, History, Indo-European, Indo-Hittite, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Language Classification, Language Families, Linguistics, Regional, Sinitic, Sino-Tibetan, Sociolinguistics, Tatar, Turkey, Turkic, Ukraine

by | June 2, 2017 · 2:00 AM

Is There a Language That is (Nearly) Impossible to Learn to Speak Without Growing up with It?

Answer from Quora: 

I recently talked to a man who is learning Min Nan, which is a Sinitic language often called a dialect of Chinese. He told me that Min Nan speakers say that the tones are so hard that no one who doesn’t grow up speaking Min Nan ever seems to get it very well.

Cantonese is a similar language that is very difficult. It is much harder than Mandarin, and many native Mandarin speakers say they tried to learn Cantonese and gave up on it because it was too hard. Cantonese has nine tones.

Basque is said to be very hard to learn unless you grow up with it. There is a joke that the Devil spent seven years trying to learn Basque, and he only learned how to say Hello and Goodbye.

Navajo would also be hard. Even Navajo children struggle quite a bit learning Navajo and don’t seem to get it well until maybe age 12. When Navajo children arrive at school, they often do not speak Navajo well yet.

Korean is a surprise, but apparently it is very hard to learn well. A native Korean speaker told me that Korean is so hard that no Korean speaker ever speaks it with 100% accuracy, and everyone makes errors.

Czech is also hard. Even most Czech speakers never get Czech all the way. They have TV contests in Czechoslovakia where they try to stump native speakers with hard forms in the language. If you can last 30 minutes without making even one error, you win. I think only two men have been able to do it, but one was a non-native speaker!

Piraha, spoken in the Brazilian Amazon, is also very hard. Over the course of a few centuries, several Portuguese speaking priests had tried to learn Piraha, but they had all given up because it was too hard. And these same priests had been able to master a number of other Indian languages, but Piraha was just too much. Daniel Everett learned the language and wrote important papers on it. He is only of the only non-native speakers who was able to learn the language.

Tsez, spoken in the Caucasus, is also murderously hard. Every verb can have over 100,000’s of possible forms. I understand that even native speakers make regular errors when speaking Tsez.

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Filed under Altaic, Applied, Balto-Slavic, Balto-Slavic-Germanic, Basque, Brazil, Cantonese, Caucasus, Chinese language, Czech, Dene-Yenisien, Indo-European, Indo-Hittite, Isolates, Korean language, Language Families, Language Learning, Linguistics, Mandarin, Min Nan, Na-Dene, Navajo, Near East, Regional, Sinitic, Sino-Tibetan, Slavic, South America

by | May 4, 2017 · 9:07 PM

Sanskrit: A Language of Perfection

I disagree on one thing though. I believe that Sanskrit was learned as a first language for a long time in India. I can’t prove it, but this is what I believe.

In fact there is a village in India to this very day where Sanskrit is spoken as a first language. The entire village consists of Sanskrit native speakers. What’s odd is that it seems to be a low caste village in a rural area. The idea that Sanskrit is some super-language that is too complex to be learned by humans is negated by the fact that these impoverished, possibly malnourished (note effects on brain development) 82 IQ low caste rural learn Sanskrit perfectly well as a first language.

The truth is that there is no natural human language that is too wild, nutty, or complex to be learned by children. If a language was developed naturally by humans,  then it can be learned by human children. Any human children. Anywhere. Period. The child’s brain is like a sponge up until age 7-8 and any human language can be picked up quite effortlessly during this age range. There is indeed a Critical Period for language learning that begins to close at age 8 and continues to close until mid-adolescence when it is closed for good. However, I still believe that you will learn a language better if you start learning it at age 15 than at age 40.

Judith on Sanskrit, magic and the quest for the perfect language.

Judith Mirville: I learned Sanskrit (mostly in the intention to demystify the present-day New Age system of magic that claims of ancient Indian lore and just cannot.

For instance chakras as we claim to know them were just unknown to classical expounders of yoga, when you find the word used only once by Patanjali it only means the body’s axis of rotational momentum as both dancers and judokas learn to know to achieve perfect balance, it has nothing to do with any invisible organ made of subtle matter) : it is not so difficult if you realize first it was never meant to be spoken as a natural language, but learned as a second language as a kind of Esperanto that actually worked.

It is an artificial, contrived language that cannot have anything to do with divinity (actually the word deva can mean any spirit like the Greek daimon), though some part of it can be used for magic, which is something very different (and even as a language for magic, classical Arabic or Greek is superior).

It is not true it is too complicated for humans, it is complicated to use it because human bureaucrats (not divine beings) built it like a perfect computer programming language without allowing any divine intervention : it is perfect for the expression of all forms of political correctness first and foremost.

If you are a good computer programmer mastering several coding languages you can pick up Sanskrit much faster, because its rules are formulated in the same way as in a computer language manual (but that doesn’t fetch into very high mathematics, more into mere accounting, hence my analogy with computer languages). Unfortunately there is no divine imprint on Sanskrit, due to its utter lack of simplicity and also to its lack of cleanliness of design.

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Filed under Applied, Asia, India, Indic, Indo-European, Indo-Hittite, Indo-Iranian, Indo-Irano-Armenian, Indo-Irano-Armeno-Hellenic, Language Families, Language Learning, Linguistics, Regional, Sanskrit, South Asia

by | April 4, 2017 · 5:04 PM

More on the Remains of Ancient Australoid “Indo-Pacific” Languages in India

Jm8: Might there have also been more than one language family among the proto-Australoid peoples of India I wonder (including Austroasiatic) (like there are in Australia and Papua today), since India is big and had been inhabited for a very long time (being among the longest inhabited areas outside Africa)?

It would be interesting to investigate the distribution of Austroasiatic influence over the various Dravidian languages to see where in India it is stronger.

This article suggests that Austroasiatic is not indigenous to India (but rather to south east Asia).

I had though that the Veddoid/early Australoid languages of India might be lost forever and only (maybe) partly reconstructible (in as few aspects) from their influences on other languages that replaced them. But if they were Austroasiatic (and represented by those languages surviving in Andra Pradesh), then that is not the case.

“The Vedda/Australoid people are speakers of the Munda branch of Austroasiatic. There is an Austroasiatic layer in both Dravidian and Indic. It is the oldest layer.”

That’s interesting. I thought Austroasiatic was associated with Southern Proto (Paleo?)-Mongoloids (like some of the Northeast Indian tribes — and Vietnamese is Austroasiatic). But maybe it predates the split between Australoid and Proto-Mongoloid peoples (some Paleomongoloid descendants of course still somewhat resemble Australoids, or did not that long ago in prehistory), which would be interesting. It’s it a very old and deep language family? I know there are some tribes in East Central India (Andra Pradesh I think) that speak Austroasiatic, and they look phenotypically a bit like something transitional between South Mongoloid and Australoid.

“I am not aware of theories showing Dravidian close to Australian languages.”

It might be discredited now (I’ll try to look into it, and the Austroasiatic influence on Dravidian, which is interesting). The theory (I think) was only that there might be a substratal influence of something like one of the Australian families on Dravidian (but still that Dravidian came mostly from somewhere the Middle East — or consistent with that idea anyway).

It might make sense that there is a substratal influence from “Indo-Pacific” languages such as those from the Andaman Islands and West Papua in Dravidian, but I have never heard of it. That would be an older layer underneath even the Munda layer in Dravidian.

There was no split between Australoids and Proto-Mongoloids. The former simply transitioned into the latter. Austroasiatic is associated with the Paleomongoloids and Neomongoloids of SE Asia. Austroasiatic is indeed old and deep, and the evidence for Austroasiatic is about as good as the evidence for Afroasiatic and Altaic. This doesn’t make sense because Afroasiatic and Austroasiatic are generally recognized families, but Altaic is not, although there evidence for the two former is no better than the evidence for the latter.

They were not lost forever as Kusunda, Nihali and the Vedda language substrate seem to be the remains of the tongues of the original Australoid speakers. The original tongues were not Austroasiatic – those languages came later. However, at the moment, most of the highly Australoid people in India speak a Munda language like Santhal. Apparently the Munda languages were once widespread over the whole continent, but most of them were replaced by Dravidian and Indic intrusions. In the more settled people, Dravidian and Indic replaced Munda languages, but in the tribals, the earlier Munda tongues lingered perhaps due to their inaccessibility living in the forest and the fact that the scheduled tribes are mostly outside the caste system.

Yes and the split between the Munda languages and the rest of the Austroasiatic is very deep. Austroasiatic can almost be split into Munda and non-Munda as two basic parts of the family. And there is not a lot left connecting the Munda languages to the rest of the family.

Kusunda, Nihali and the substrate of the Vedda language of Sri Lanka are thought to be the remains of the languages of the original Australoid speakers. These languages may be related to the Andaman Islands languages and Papuan languages. I know there is a connection between Kusunda and Andaman Islands languages and West Papuan tongues. There is some theorized relationship with such “Indo=Pacific” tongues and Nihali and the Vedda substrate also.

Yes, the Mundas came into India relatively lately and surely replaced nearly all of those original Andaman/Papuan languages of the Australoid people.

At the moment, Kusunda and Nihali are isolates, and even the Andaman tongues are split into two different families, so right now there are already separate language families among these Australoid people.

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by | April 3, 2017 · 9:29 PM

The Influence of the Tongues of Australoid/Vedda People in India on Dravidian Languages

Jm8: I wonder what influence the languages of the proto-Australoid/Veddoid peoples had on modern Dravidian languages. It seems pretty clear that Dravidian came primarily from a Near Eastern family also ancestral to Elamite (Elamo-Dravidian) in Iran and reached India around the Neolithic. But I wonder if Veddoid peoples’ languages could have a substratal influence on Dravidian (or at least some Dravidian languages—esp those farther south or the tribal ones), even perhaps playing a role in its divergence from its Elamo-Dravidian root; depending on where Dravidian truly diverged (e.g: If it diverged within the Indian subcontinent—like around Pakistan/NW India—, where proto-Australoid peoples lived).

The influence of those peoples might be hard to assess. I recall a while ago reading about an old theory that Dravidian had some grammatical similarities to certain Australian Aboriginal languages (Northern maybe?).

But did these similarities also exist I wonder in the one surviving Dravidian language of the North, Brahui in Pakistan, whose speakers presumably have much less native proto-Australoid ancestry?

One might possibly also check for similarities to Andamanese languages (a bit of a long shot I know).

The Vedda/Australoid people are speakers of the Munda branch of Austroasiatic. There is an Austroasiatic layer in both Dravidian and Indic. It is the oldest layer.

I am not aware of theories showing Dravidian close to Australian languages.

There is a moribund language spoken in Nepal called Kusunda which appears to be related to West Papuan the Andaman Islands languages.

Keep in mind that in mainstream Historical Linguistics (which has deviated far away from anything sane anymore anyway), there is no Papuan language family. Instead, Papua is divided into 37 separate language families and 20 isolates. They also say there is no Australian language family,  although I believe R. W. Dixon made a case for one. Instead we have 20 different language families and four isolates in Australia. And they do not posit that the Andaman languages form a coherent family. There are two separate families even in the Andaman Islands, with Ongan and Greater Andamanese, with no demonstrated relationship between them. I have looked at the Andaman languages, and trust me, some of them are extremely far apart.

The people positing that Papuan, Australian and Andaman are language families or even that all three together form a single family called Indo-Pacific (Joseph Greenberg’s hypothesis) are all long-rangers whose views are not accepted in mainstream linguistics. However, Steven Wurm accepts a much-modified and more conservative view of Greenberg’s theory.  In addition, it appears that Trans New Guinea, West Papuan, Greater Andamanese and some Timorese languages, all included in Greenberg’s Indo-Pacific, show striking similarities which to my mind could only be genetic.

At any rate mainstream Linguistics is very conservative as far as Historical Linguistics goes. The existence of Elamo-Dravidian, which should be obvious to anyone looking, is not even regarded as proven.

I have looked at Dravidian quite a bit, and I did not think it was even close to the putative Nostratic family of Northern Eurasia. Instead it seemed to be closer to Afroasiatic than anything else. If Elamite was spoken in Western Iran, and before that the proto-Dravidians were in the Levant (according to the old theories), then it would make sense that Dravidian would be closer to Afroasiatic than anything else.

Keep in mind that Afroasiatic is a very old family – it may be 13-15,000 years old. And the fact that it is even regarded as proven at all (yes there are some ultra-splitters who are now saying that Afroasiatic is not even real) shows how wrong Historical Linguistics is when they say that any relationships older than 8,000 years cannot be proven because they are beyond the means of the comparative method of Historical Linguistics. If anything over 8,000 YBP is unknowable as far as the comparative method is concerned, then how did we prove Afroasiatic which goes back 15,000 YBP?

But Comparative Linguistics has gotten totally offtrack. Whereas traditionally, we simply observed languages and threw them into families based on obvious similarities and only after that reconstructed, now they have it backwards. No matter how much the languages look alike, we can’t put them into a family unless we have reconstructed all the way back to the proto-languages and found regular sound correspondences. Only then do we prove relatedness.

But Linguistics never worked that way before. Relatedness was posited simply on observation, and only later was the hard reconstruction work with regular sound correspondences done.

According to Lyle Campbell, Joanna Nichols and others unfortunately at the top of Historical Linguistics nowadays, Sir William Jones could not have even posited the existence of an Indo-European family because we had not yet reconstructed Proto-Indo-European and its regular sound correspondences yet. See? They’ve got it backwards.

Anyway even IE is not well understood. How’s that Laryngeal Theory working out for you guys? Coming right along, right? Didn’t think so. Just as I thought.

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Filed under Aborigines, Afroasiatic, Anthropology, Asia, Australia, Comparitive, Dravidian, India, Indo-European, Indo-Hittite, Iran, Isolates, Language Classification, Language Families, Linguistics, Nepal, Pacific, Pakistan, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, South Asia