I can't thank you enough for your podcast. It make my day every time a new one lands on my phone.
I am not a linguist by any means but I wanted to ask a question about whether there was a fourth option after descent, convergence, or horizontal transmission. There are a finite number of consonants and vowel sounds humans can make, which means there is a finite number of syllables they can make. You can add complications like tones to it but still gets you down to a few hundred combinations for a single syllable.
In most languages the antiquity and ubiquity of a word will determine its frequency and be inversely proportional to its length. Some languages will have "die" have a shared meaning since it is a human universal experience. Same with "fire". "Rim" is trickier, of course.
John McWhorter, I'm sorry to hijack this thread, but I wanted to respond to your last post. about DEI and I don't have money to subscribe to you at the moment (maybe next month.)
I actually have a whole proposal for overhauling the K-12 education system, but in particular, I have a proposal for changes to high school curriculum which I believe would replace DEI with truly effective methods which would result in never having a need for something like DEI. I propose we replace four years of 'Social Studies' with the following:
—Every month is Black history month! One full year of black history, to include ‘ebonics,’ also include black LGBTQ history
—Add Immigrant Studies! One full year of ethnic history. Food words in variety of non-english languages (enough to eat and shop), also include ethnic LGBTQ history
—Add Native American studies! One year nature words in indigenous languages, include Native American LGBTQ history
—Add Western studies! One year white people history, to include slang and other white culture words, to include LGBTQ history
I'm curious to know what you think of this proposal? Maybe we should demand MORE, not less. Something that will actually work.
I'm listening to your Great Course Human Language lecture 19 The Fallacy of Blackboard Grammar and that brings up a question of evolution. Most people I hear say "There's horses over there" rather than "There're horses over there". It seems that that is one of those grammatical things, "there is horses" versus "there are horses".
First, is it?
Second, if that becomes the norm, could "there's" become "theres" like "its" that seems to have been the possessive "it's" in writing?
Third, if that's the case, then does that call into question of the grammar rules of "is"/"are" with regards to singular and plural?
Thinking out loud: So, it seems that these similarities are accidental. It is reasonable that we especially notice these false cognates and speculate a common origin, or borrowing. If there are a limited number of sounds that humans can make, wouldn't it be likely that out of thousands of languages, some would have parallel development?
We know that members of different language groups have different onomatopoetic interpretations of animal and other sounds. However, are there examples of unrelated language groups that might have developed similar words because of onomatopoeia? For instance, 2 separate languages independently thought that the sound a fire makes when it burns sounds like "fire/fi", and that's why the words are similar?
Thai is a really unique language in that it had Chinese influence when the Tai peoples were in what is now China and Northern Vietnam, then they had a Mon influence when they moved to what is now Thailand (Dvaravati period), and then there is the massive influence of Pali, an Indo-European language (Indian Pakrit) spoken by the Buddha when he was an Indian prince in his last incarnation. To this day most Thai men who are Buddhist will know some Pali words, and many have a functional proficiency in the language (my Thai wife knows a dozen Pali prayers by heart -- I would compare it to Pre-Vatican 2 Catholics and Latin).
I suspect that Thai has more connections to Indo-European languages than other East Asian languages such as Vietnamese or Chinese. It is difficult to study early Thai though because the palm leaves that they used for paper do not last long in the tropical climate. we only have stone inscriptions to guide us, and those are not too common and overwhelmingly deal with Buddhism or the heroic deeds of monarch So-and-So.
What we increasingly do know is that ancient trade and travel were far more extensive than historians had previously thought. Thai archeological sites have had Greek and Roman coins. There are Greek makers-marks on Indian sculpture all over the Indian sub-continent and ruins of full Greek cities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. One can find Buddhist art with European-faced Buddhas, Cupids, and even a carved Herakles holding up Buddha. The Indo-Greek king Menander is mentioned in the Pali Cannon (the sacred core written materials used by Theravada Buddhists). So there certainly had to be some influence Indo-European and Indo-Aryan languages. All of the pre-Tai-migration kingdoms of maritime Southeast Asia were heavily influenced by Indian Hindu and later Buddhist culture. If you read any book on Southeast Asian history you will see Ceodes' "Indianized States of Southeast Asia" cited repeatedly. That did not stop when the Tai people rolled in.
So there very well may be serious influences of outside languages. The tradition of wandering Buddhist monk-scholars probably facilitated this beyond trade networks.
What I want to know is why did everyone start moving around at that time. From like the 500's to the end of the millennium so many people moved to new places (Germans, Avars, Magyars, Bulgars in Europe, Arabs in the Middle East, Tai and Viet in East Asia,...). The only tools we have are linguistics and genetics.
You are the linguist, John but my favorite was always the literal translation of Coca-Cola as being "Bite the Wax Tadpole"
What about the Thai words พ่อ por and แม่ mae for father and mother?
I can't thank you enough for your podcast. It make my day every time a new one lands on my phone.
I am not a linguist by any means but I wanted to ask a question about whether there was a fourth option after descent, convergence, or horizontal transmission. There are a finite number of consonants and vowel sounds humans can make, which means there is a finite number of syllables they can make. You can add complications like tones to it but still gets you down to a few hundred combinations for a single syllable.
In most languages the antiquity and ubiquity of a word will determine its frequency and be inversely proportional to its length. Some languages will have "die" have a shared meaning since it is a human universal experience. Same with "fire". "Rim" is trickier, of course.
What about linguistic rlativism?
John McWhorter, I'm sorry to hijack this thread, but I wanted to respond to your last post. about DEI and I don't have money to subscribe to you at the moment (maybe next month.)
I actually have a whole proposal for overhauling the K-12 education system, but in particular, I have a proposal for changes to high school curriculum which I believe would replace DEI with truly effective methods which would result in never having a need for something like DEI. I propose we replace four years of 'Social Studies' with the following:
—Every month is Black history month! One full year of black history, to include ‘ebonics,’ also include black LGBTQ history
—Add Immigrant Studies! One full year of ethnic history. Food words in variety of non-english languages (enough to eat and shop), also include ethnic LGBTQ history
—Add Native American studies! One year nature words in indigenous languages, include Native American LGBTQ history
—Add Western studies! One year white people history, to include slang and other white culture words, to include LGBTQ history
I'm curious to know what you think of this proposal? Maybe we should demand MORE, not less. Something that will actually work.
I'm listening to your Great Course Human Language lecture 19 The Fallacy of Blackboard Grammar and that brings up a question of evolution. Most people I hear say "There's horses over there" rather than "There're horses over there". It seems that that is one of those grammatical things, "there is horses" versus "there are horses".
First, is it?
Second, if that becomes the norm, could "there's" become "theres" like "its" that seems to have been the possessive "it's" in writing?
Third, if that's the case, then does that call into question of the grammar rules of "is"/"are" with regards to singular and plural?
Thanks, Jeff
In one Bugs Bunny cartoon, Witch Hazel sings "A Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich, and You". The "and You" part is of concern in that context.
Thinking out loud: So, it seems that these similarities are accidental. It is reasonable that we especially notice these false cognates and speculate a common origin, or borrowing. If there are a limited number of sounds that humans can make, wouldn't it be likely that out of thousands of languages, some would have parallel development?
We know that members of different language groups have different onomatopoetic interpretations of animal and other sounds. However, are there examples of unrelated language groups that might have developed similar words because of onomatopoeia? For instance, 2 separate languages independently thought that the sound a fire makes when it burns sounds like "fire/fi", and that's why the words are similar?
Thai is a really unique language in that it had Chinese influence when the Tai peoples were in what is now China and Northern Vietnam, then they had a Mon influence when they moved to what is now Thailand (Dvaravati period), and then there is the massive influence of Pali, an Indo-European language (Indian Pakrit) spoken by the Buddha when he was an Indian prince in his last incarnation. To this day most Thai men who are Buddhist will know some Pali words, and many have a functional proficiency in the language (my Thai wife knows a dozen Pali prayers by heart -- I would compare it to Pre-Vatican 2 Catholics and Latin).
I suspect that Thai has more connections to Indo-European languages than other East Asian languages such as Vietnamese or Chinese. It is difficult to study early Thai though because the palm leaves that they used for paper do not last long in the tropical climate. we only have stone inscriptions to guide us, and those are not too common and overwhelmingly deal with Buddhism or the heroic deeds of monarch So-and-So.
What we increasingly do know is that ancient trade and travel were far more extensive than historians had previously thought. Thai archeological sites have had Greek and Roman coins. There are Greek makers-marks on Indian sculpture all over the Indian sub-continent and ruins of full Greek cities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. One can find Buddhist art with European-faced Buddhas, Cupids, and even a carved Herakles holding up Buddha. The Indo-Greek king Menander is mentioned in the Pali Cannon (the sacred core written materials used by Theravada Buddhists). So there certainly had to be some influence Indo-European and Indo-Aryan languages. All of the pre-Tai-migration kingdoms of maritime Southeast Asia were heavily influenced by Indian Hindu and later Buddhist culture. If you read any book on Southeast Asian history you will see Ceodes' "Indianized States of Southeast Asia" cited repeatedly. That did not stop when the Tai people rolled in.
So there very well may be serious influences of outside languages. The tradition of wandering Buddhist monk-scholars probably facilitated this beyond trade networks.
What I want to know is why did everyone start moving around at that time. From like the 500's to the end of the millennium so many people moved to new places (Germans, Avars, Magyars, Bulgars in Europe, Arabs in the Middle East, Tai and Viet in East Asia,...). The only tools we have are linguistics and genetics.