Linguists seek a time when we spoke as one

The Christian Science Monitor ^ | 18 July 2007 | Moises Velasquez-Manoff

[muawiyah]

Pretty obvious isn't it. Think "Old West Gothic" ~ economy of words ~ queen, woman, wench, all same thing GI.

The difference would rest in the context ~

[muawiyah]

The usual argument behind multiple conjugations and declensions is that neighborhing tribes joined together and their children developed a creole using the materials from their parents' languages.

Or, the men of one tribe simply stole women from another tribe, and the mothers taught the children how to speak ~ but once they got out on the streets the kids developed their own creole.

[SunkenCiv]

Ally Oop could.

[HIDEK6]

It's called the "historic present".

They can call it, "I'm a lot smarter than you, dumbass," and it won't change the fact that it doesn't communicate and is confusing.

[muawiyah]

When you are using one of the more typical Indo-European languages with a lot of fancy suffixes and excess vowels (so you can handle the intended dipthongs), it gets nasty ~ so if you stipulate initially that you are writing an history (about the past), and then start writing in present tense, it makes everything easier to understand.

This makes no sense to someone who uses only English to communicate of course.

We invented "helper verbs" that carry the greater burden of tense. These other guys don't have them.

And yes, it means I'm smarter than you ~ and most of them for that matter ~ and probably smarter than almost everybody in the world, but I'm retired with THREE (count'em 3) GOVERNMENT PENSIONS, so Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ciexyz]

Most interesting topic.

[SunkenCiv]

The word “gamut” comes to mind. ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

Uncracked Ancient Codes
(Lost Languages reviewed)
by William C. West

As longtime literary editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement in London, Andrew Robinson is well able to interpret the arcana of scientific discoveries for the general public. In Lost Languages, he explains the principles of three famous decipherments and applies the insights gained to an understanding of several undeciphered scripts—Linear A, the Etruscan alphabet, the Phaistos disc, and the Meroitic, Proto-Elamite, rongorongo, Zapotec, Isthmian and Indus scripts.

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Lost Languages: The Enigma Of The World's Undeciphered Scripts by Andrew Robinson

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[SunkenCiv]

Dying Languages
NY Sun | 12/28/06 | JOHN McWHORTER
Posted on 01/02/2007 9:25:46 AM EST by Valin
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1761250/posts

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

China has always been a player in the World economy, but centuries ago during the Ming dynasty, the Chinese abruptly became more isolationist:

“In the early 1400s, a sailor named Zheng He (with a fleet of some 300-plus ships)sailed as far west as Mogadishu and Jiddah, and he may (or may not) have gotten to Madagascar. This is nearly 100 years before Columbus had the idea of trying to sail to Asia the long way around. But once the sailors came back, the trips were never followed up on. Conservative scholars at court failed to see the importance of them. For the first time in history, China was turning inwards, clinging to an incorrect interpretation of an outmoded philosophy.”

Then the Manchu’s continued to slide:

” Qing (Manchu) (1644 - 1911)
In 1644, the Manchus took over China and founded the Qing dynasty. The Qing weren’t the worst rulers; under them the arts flowered (China’s greatest novel, a work known variously as The Dream of the Red Chamber, A Dream of Red Mansions, and The Story of the Stone, was written during the Qing) and culture bloomed. Moreover, they attempted to copy Chinese institutions and philosophy to a much greater extent than then the Mongols of the Yuan. However, in their attempt to to emulate the Chinese, they were even more conservative and inflexible than the Ming. Their approach to foreign policy, which was to make everyone treat the Emperor like the Son of Heaven and not acknowledge other countries as being equal to China, didn’t rub the West the right way, even when the Chinese were in the moral right (as in the Opium Wars, which netted Britain Hong Kong and Kowloon).”

http://condensedchina.com/china4.html#Qing

Also, the impact of Confucianism on Chinese culture was huge, and a double edged sword:

“Confucius, who lived about five hundred years before Christ, basically believed that moral men make good rulers and that virtue is one of the most important properties that an official can have. He also believed that virtue can be attained by following the proper way of behaving, and thus placed a great deal of stress on proper. Most of what is considered ‘Confucianism’ was actually written down by a disciple named Mencius, who also believed that all men were basically good. Confucius also codified the status of the ruler in Chinese political thought; the Emperor was the Son of Heaven (while Heaven in a Western context is a place, Heaven in the Chinese context is a divine/natural force) and had the Mandate of Heaven to rule.

Legalism derived from the teachings of another one of Confucius’ disciples, a man named Xun-zi. Xun-zi believed that, for the most part, man would look out for himself first and was therefore basically evil (remember, this is more than two thousand years before Adam Smith argued that self-interest is what makes markets work and is therefore good). Consequently, the Legalists designed a series of draconian laws that would make a nation easier to control. The fundamental aim of both Confucianism and Legalism was the re-unification of a then divided China, but they took difference approaches. Confucianism depended on virtue and natural order; Legalism used a iron fist. Legalism has been called “super-Machiavellian;” this is not unwarranted, as it called for the suppression of dissent by the burning of books and burying dissidents alive (maltreatment of the opposition is nothing new in China; because the system starts with the idea that the Emperor is the Son of Heaven and has the Mandate of Heaven to rule, there is no such thing as legitimate dissent and thus no concept of “loyal opposition”). Legalism advocated techniques such as maintaining an active secret police, encouraging neighbors to inform on each other, and the creation of a general atmosphere of fear. In fact, many of the same tactics that the Legalists approved of were later employed by Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.”

[HIDEK6]

And yes, it means I'm smarter than you ~ and most of them for that matter ~ and probably smarter than almost everybody in the world, but I'm retired with THREE (count'em 3) GOVERNMENT PENSIONS, so Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Does that mean, "I'm right because I say I am."?

[muawiyah]

You’re getting picky now.

[Ciexyz]

Interesting info on China, thanks for posting.

[Ptarmigan]

I tend to believe that all languages came from one language. If you compare two completely different languages, you will find similar words. I tend to believe many of the world’s major languages came from Central Asia, like Indo-European and Altai-Ural languages.