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Readers' Feedback
Language Families
Page 7 of 9
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Dear Kryss,
I heard about the Cumbrian language (a Celtic language I had never heard about before) and I wondered whether this language is still alive / spoken, what it sounds like, what the grammar is like, etc.
Do you have information on this or do you know where (on the web or elsewhere) to get such information? It would be very helpful to tell me, if you do know something. Thank you.
KryssTal Reply: I don't know anything about this language but you could try a couple of sites:
A few minor corrections:
1) "Latin Branch" should be "Italic Branch".
KryssTal Reply: Quite correct, but I prefer the *Latin* term. These languages can also be labled Romance
2) "Catalonian" should be "Catalan".
KryssTal Reply:Quite correct - I'll change it.
3) "Czeck" should be "Czech".
4) "Ukranian" should be "Ukrainian".
5) "Devanagarni" should be "Devanagari"
KryssTal Reply: Spelling has never been my strong point - he said, sheepishly ...
6) "Lappish" is considered derogatory: change to "Sámi".
KryssTal Reply: I didn't know that - I don't want to insult anybody.
7) "Malayo-Polynesian" should be "Austronesian", as the family includes the indigenous languages of Taiwan.
KryssTal Reply: Yes, that is an alternative term? I prefer Malayo-Polynesian because it's more descriptive.
8) "Independent" should be "language isolates".
KryssTal Reply: I prefer the former term as it is more familiar.
Note that Korean's status in Altaic is controversial; indeed, the whole Altaic grouping is controversial.
KryssTal Reply: I knew that - there are obviously lots of hypotheses about families. When I was in Korea, I chatted to people about their language and got the idea that it should be included because of the vowel harmony. I must stress however that I am not an expert. Ich bin ein computer programmer.
Thank you again for your comments. I have a chart of the various languages that I plan to install on the web page when I get round to it.
Hi Kryss
You ommitted Polabian and Kshubian from list of Slavic languages , and Old Prussian (extinct) from the Baltic list. What about the following Germanic ones ? : Lutzeburgisch, Platt Deutsch, Lowland Scots, Schweitzer-Deutsch, Alsatian, Faroese ? And under Romance languages : Friuli, Corsican, Caribbean Creole ?
KryssTal Reply: Thanks - the trick is to put enough detail to make it interesting without swamping the reader with information. But I'll check these out for inclusion. Thank you for your interest!
To whom it may concern:
I think that the Altaic language chart on your web page is incomplete, being that Japanese is absent from it. There is much conclusive evidence out there -- although not readily available to everyone -- that japanese is definitely related to the Altaic family of languages.
Before one can place Korean within the Altaic family, they first have to place it with Japanese -- Korean has much more similarities to Japanese than with any other Altaic language. As a matter of fact, there are some cognates that appear only in Japanese and Korean, and not in the other 3 subfamilies. Furthermore, when we look at the counting system, Japanese has much more cognates with Manchu-Tungusic than any other altaic language.
This along with proven sound correspondences, etc., merits Japanese a secure place within the Altaic family. Please see the attachment to this e-mail. Thank You.
KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your fascinating information. I will study it and make the necessary changes to my web site.
The statement that the other Germanic languages originated from Anglo-Saxon is totally untrue. Anglo-Saxon was taken to Britain by Germanic tribes that invaded Britan from A.C. 400 on. First Saxons, Frisians, Angles and Jutes; later Danes and Norsemen. Dutch is marginatedly closer to English than High German, since the latter, unlike Dutch and English, has been heavily burdened by inflections, and a cumbersome grammar. German is also behind in the evolution of consonants into softer sounds.
Frisian is not closer to English than to Dutch. It is closer to Dutch than to English. The Frisians like to state the former, because they have a few words that look more like English than like Dutch. The Dutch could claim the same, but are not interested. The Frisians, when composing their dictionary, will consistently enter a new word, chosen from a number of versions spoken in their province, that is the most remote from Dutch. It is something like in Quebec, where Stop has become Arret in spite of the fact that in France it is Stop.
KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your comments.
Hey Kryss darling,
You might not care but I thought you should know that you made a glaring error concerning Sino-Tibetan where you say that "MEN" in Mandarin can mean "gate" or "we" depending on the tone. Make sure you get your facts straight. You're right about "men" (rising tone) being "gate" but "we" is "wo-men". The "wo" part is the most important part which, of course, means "I/me/my". The "-men" part (neutral tone) is merely a suffix signifying a pronominal plural (In Cantonese, -de is used for the pronominal plural as in ngo-de/'o-de "we", lei-de/nei-de "you all", koey-de/hoey-de "they"). There is also "ni-men" and "ta-men" meaning "you all" and "they" in Mandarin. You were probably getting confused with Etruscan "mi", Sumerian "men", Lappish "mon", Yukaghir "met" or Turkish "ben" all signifying "I", you silly goose you.
A common and better example of tone might be the syllable "ma" which can mean "to scold", "horse", "mother", "hemp" or a question marker at the end of a sentence as in "Ni hao ma?". Why, you could even create a meaningless sentence like "Mama ma ma ma?" if you so desired which would mean "Is mother scolding the horse?" with the first syllable being high tone, second being neutral, third being falling, fourth being falling-rising and fifth being neutral.
As for Cantonese having _nine_ tones, that's a matter of opinion. Cantonese is a language all its own really and it has its own dialects. Depending on the geographical area you are talking about, Cantonese might be said to have six to nine tones. As well, Cantonese's "high level tone" which was in use a hundred years ago is no longer popular and has merged with another tone called "high falling" so it also depends on whether you want to count these ancient tones too.
By the way, it would be fair to your viewers to also mention that Thai is becoming a contraversial group within Sino-Tibetan. So far as I hear through the grapevine, Thai is mostly viewed as being seperate from Sino-Tibetan now. Perhaps they had been initially grouped together simply because they both share tones and a common but distinctly Sino-Tibetan number system. A budding theory called "Austro-Thai" might link Thai ultimately with Austronesian languages like Tagalog (a major Philipino dialect), Indonesian and Hawaiian however there is a competing theory called "Austric" which as far as I recall doesn't accept lonely ol' Thai into its clique.
It would be nice if you added Sino-Tibetan reconstructions to your descriptions too like *mlung "heart", *drug "six" or *ktyig "one" and mention about the proto-language's special grammatical feature: "word classes". But oh well, c'est la vie.
Glad though that someone is putting up online info on language families. It's badly needed in this crazy, mixed-up, two-bit world of internet roadkill. God's speed, may the force be with you and all that jazz.
Well, adieu for now, my sweet petunia.
Oh sweet innocent Kryss,
You've been so unjustly wronged. I noticed that you DID mention Thai as possibly being a seperate language family and in my twisted, drug-induced zest had wrongly accused you of not being upfront with your special cabbage-headed web-audience. I suppose the blinding, grey background evocative of an unsolvable stereogram lead me horribly astray. Apologies. May you find it in your precious heart to forgive me.
Well, off to save a helpless child from a burning building... Up, up and away!
KryssTal Reply: What are you on, old chap?
Taken your notes on board and will make appropriate changes soon.
I'm sorry there, Kryss. How naughty of me to frighten you so. Don't worry. You'll be happy to know that I never stalk, kill or maim, on the first date. I'm quite harmless really. I lied about the drug-induced thing unless you count tetracycline as a drug and I'm off it now. I SWEAR!!! My complexion has never been better :P
I'm just high on life & linguistics and partially hypnotized by the anonymity of the internet medium (I'm really a 40 year-old lesbian with a prosthetic leg... or am I??). Anyways, on impulse and for cheap thrills, I decided to dowse somebody with my zealous opinions and knowledge in the subject using my special narrative style.
I hope I didn't do too much damage to your sense of reality. Be well, my love and I'll always keep the words that we shared dear to my heart. Now it's time to move on, excuse me :P
KryssTal Reply: My sense of reality will get a jolt in a 15 days when I experience my 7th total eclipse of the sun (weather permitting). I enjoyed your email and appreciated your obvious knowledge on a fascinating subject.
Hi I was looking at your site, and I loved it.
I suspected that Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic language brothers. Arabic borrowed many words from other close languages, they include Torah, Injil, Iblees, Isa, Pharoah, etc. I have been researching Akbar. The word is originally found in the ancient Assyrian language (around Babylon in 2500 B.C.) This word is also found in the Hebrew language and then it made its way to the Arabic language. It is basically the same spelling, in Hebrew and Arabic it is the same spelling. akbar. It is found in Lev 11:29 in Hebrew. I haven't been able to find this word in no earlier date in Arabic. This word isn't originally Arabic, even some Muslims have told me that so if this word is originally found in other close semitic languages with no proof at all of it being in the Arabic language (a new language) this word obviously can't be Arabic.
What is your idea on this. Please respond a.s.a.p.
KryssTal Reply: Thank you - I suspect that all languages that cover large areas (like Arabic) will have borrowed words from the languages they encounter. I don't know too much about the history of Arabic but your ideas sound reasonable.
Just read your summary on languages. Need a few comments.
To each person his language is most important, whatever the big picture is to them irrelevant. In a different age non Indo European languages were also important. Egyptian, Assyrian, Sumerian, Chinese etc are nothing to sneeze at. The current English madness will also pass, just as these have passed.
KryssTal Reply: I hope I was not sneezing at other languages. I was stating the fact that English is a very important language *at this time*. and is likely to remain so during our life times. I appreciate that other languages are culturally important and do not like the idea of languages disappearing or being politically discriminated against.
Why is English a "madness". It, too, is a valid language. All languages borrow from others they come into contact with. Although the language originated in England, it is actually the commercial pressures of the United States that have made the language so prevalent.
The FinnUgor languages are not Inflected at all, noun cases as you mentioned are generated by suffixes and the root word is never changed! All of what you said about Altaic applies also to FinnUgor, being very similar even down to most of the basic vocabulary. Naturally there are changes in pronunciation due to a few thousand years.
KryssTal Reply: My knowledge of the Uralic languages is less than yours and I take your comments on board. Please note that the word "inflected" means that endings change.
In general I enjoyed your page as a sort of introduction to what this great quiltwork of a world we live in.
KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your comments.
A friend of mine from India bemoans the loss of Hindi to English, which was forced on them during the colonialization
KryssTal Reply: It was not forced on them in the same way that Spanish was forced in Latin America. Indian Indians still have their names; in Latin America the indigenous people have Spanish names! In South India, Tamils are bemoaning the adoption of Hindi as *the* national language because it belongs to a different family. In Turkey, Kurdish was, until recently,
banned.
Cultural imperialism is not confined to English speakers.
English itself seems like an incredible hodge poge,
KryssTal Reply: This is one of its strengths. It has taken from a wide range of languages.
but is a good simple basic language for commerce. That has been its main history.
KryssTal Reply: Thank you for responding.
A comment about Korean script: you mentioned that Korean evolved separately from all the other scripts in the world having been invented a few hundred years ago.
While this is partially true, King Sae Jong in 1592 commissioned scholars to travel throughout Asia studying their scripts. Thus, Korean script is made up of a large number of characters from other languages (Chinese "grass" characters, even ancient Dravidian, etc.).
Enjoyed your language information on the web. Thanks.
KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your comments.
Dear Sire,
You forgot the languages of american Native ? did you? languages of Tunguzes, Giliaks... ?
KryssTal Reply: I did not forget - I don't know enough about them! I am still learning.