On 4 December 2011 23:16, Michael Everson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> > I can think of plenty. But the main reason is: it's a conlang, and the
> Indo-European classification is meant to use for natlangs exclusively.
>
> Says who?


Every linguist except you.


> I'e been stuyding historical linguistics since I was 14 and I would accept
> no such stricture.


Sorry, but I don't accept your authority on that subject. Too many people
disagree with you.


> Classification is a descriptive tool.
>
>
True. But using a tool for things it was not designed for can only result
in chaos and unintended consequences.


> > Why? because it's based on diacronic linguistics:
>
> Synchrony is also a tool that can be used in comparing languages.
>
>
Yes, but it results in different classifications entirely. The
Indo-European family of languages is entirely and only based on diachrony.
Typological comparison can lead to interesting classifications (like the
Balkan Sprachbund, or SAE), but those are orthogonal to genetic
affiliation. You're confusing different types of classifications, that
exist on different levels and need to be kept separate.


> > a language is Indo-European if and only if a set of regular sound
> correspondences can be found between it and other Indo-European languages,
> pointing out to a natural evolution from PIE via sound changes.
>
> A language can be Indo-European even if it does not participate in such an
> evolution.


No it cannot. By definition. What you are trying to do is impose on us a
different definition of "Indo-European" than the one that everybody else
accepts. And we're disagreeing that it's a useful definition.


> Does Volapük or Esperanto look Bantu, or Tai-Kadai? No, they do not.
>
>
No. But they hardly look Indo-European either. The resemblance is *very*
superficial, and I say that as an Esperanto speaker.


> > You can't do that with Interlingua, at least not enough to treat the
> language as Indo-European.
>
> If one were fool enough to try to use Interlingua as evidence for
> linguistic reconstruction one would be making a mistake. To say that
> Spanish is Indo-European but Interlingua is not is, well, to me quite
> ridiculous.
>

To say that Interlingua is Indo-European *is* ridiculous.


>
> > You *can* do that with Brithenig, because that's how it was designed. In
> that case, you can call it Romance and Indo-European, and I'd have no
> problem with that (as long as you don't forget to mention it's artificial).
> But you can't do that with Novial or Esperanto or Interlingua. Call them
> "of Indo-European stock" if you want, but they are not Indo-European
> languages.
>
> An engineered/artistic/auxiliary/constructed language can most certainly
> be described, based on its lexical and grammatical features, as
> Indo-European if it shares lexical and grammatical features with
> Indo-European languages.


No. It can be described as Indo-European if it can be proven through the
comparative method (and only through it) that there is a set of regular
sound changes between PIE and the language in question.

Typological comparisons only lead to groupings of resemblance, not of
affiliation. You can probably find someone somewhere in the world who has
near identical features to mine, in terms of face, eye colour, skin
complexion, posture, etc. That won't make this person related to me in any
way unless DNA testing proves we're related.

Being in a language family is like a blood relationship: it exists only
through a very strict set of criteria. Typological and lexical resemblance
do *not* belong in those criteria. Those are orthogonal to the whole
question.


> Talossan is a marvellous Romance artlang. I have heard that it has been
> criticized because it does not have regular sound changes from Latin or
> Proto-Romance. Perhaps a narrow sort of expectation about what a Romance
> artlang might be would lead someone to be disappointed with it. For my
> part, I like the energy of Talossan. And of course it is Romance. And that
> means that of course it is Indo-European.
>
>
Not if it doesn't have regular sound changes from Proto-Romance. It may be
Romance-based, but it's not Romance.

And that doesn't change anything to its quality as a conlang. Why do you
*have* to put things in places where they don't belong? Can't you just
enjoy them for what they are, rather than for what you'd like them to be?


> And of course it is artificial.
>
> >> I don't agree. Both Slavic and Gothic translations of the Bible reflect
> Greek participles very exactly; it is debatable as to whether this usage
> was a natural part of Slavic and Gothic before those translations were
> made, though certainly in modern Russian the use of participles is very
> widespread. Might not such innovations by translators be considered
> language engineering?
> >>
> > But that's language engineering done on a language that *already
> existed* and evolved naturally from an earlier form.
>
> It seems that the Euroclones are the result of language engineering done
> on the basis of one or more languages that *already existed* and evolved
> naturally from an earlier form.


The nature of the work is still quite different. What the translators did
was the equivalent of sewing a new pocket to a pair of trousers. The
trousers look a bit different, but they still are essentially the same
trousers. Euroclone creators, on the other hand, take a look at different
trousers (all similar in that they have two legs, a way to close the
trousers at the waist, etc...), take fabric, cut it in ways similar to the
trousers they've looked at, and sew the pieces into a new pair of trousers.
This is quite a different thing to do. They didn't modify something that
already existed, but made something new, inspired by something that already
existed. Those are activities that cannot be compared (indeed, they require
quite different skills).


> It doesn't make "unu, do, tri, kvar, kvin, ses, sep, ok, naŭ, dek"
> anything but obviously Indo-European in form. They don't have to be
> "unsullied by an engineer" to be relatable to their Indo-European heritage.
>
>
Eh... no. Looks can be deceptive. Some non-IE languages have borrowed the
IE numbers wholesale. That didn't transform them suddenly into IE
languages. The Esperanto numbers may look IE, but they work quite
differently, in a way that is typologically more similar to how numbers in
Chinese or Japanese work. Their form may have been inspired by IE
languages, but that's it.


> > The main stock was natural, and was only tampered with on a limited
> scale.
>
> From this I guess we may understand that you admire "natural" development.


No I don't. What does it even have to *do* with what I've written?


> That's fine, but it doesn't trump a description of Esperanto or
> Interlingua as being Indo-European in nature.
>
>
No. The fact that they are diachronically unrelated to IE languages does.


> > With Esperanto and Novial and Ido and Interlingua, the *very stock
> itself* was created artificially.
>
> Not out of whole cloth. By no means.
>
>
I disagree on that. See my "trousers" example above. They *were* created
out of whole cloth. It's just that the cloth was cut in such a way as to
make it look somewhat like existing languages.


> >> Only diachronic conlangs based on natlangs, such as Brithenig, could be
> said to belong to the base language's family, but even that is not the
> usual practice in linguistics; for instance, Wikipedia classifies Brithenig
> as artificial, not as Indo-European. I'd say that the Wikipedia is wrong
> here.
> >>
> > I'd say it's right: Brithenig doesn't exist as a spoken language *here*.
>
> So?
>
>
So it does not belong to the Indo-European language family here. It's a
family of natlangs.


> > It doesn't belong in the *real* Indo-European tree.
>
> That depends on the purpose of the classifier.


The purpose of the Indo-European family is to classify *natlangs* which are
all descended from PIE and thus share a common ancestry. That is all there
is to it. Typological and lexical resemblances don't enter into it. A
language typologically unlike anything IE, but that could convincingly be
related to PIE through regular sound changes would still be IE.


> You won't be able to use Brithenig to help reconstruct anything. It's
> still Indo-European though, even if a fictional daughter.
>
>
There's no such thing.


> > It belongs in the IE tree in Ill Bethisad, but our Universe isn't Ill
> Bethisad.
>
> I am compelled to point out that the fictional Ill Bethisad exists within
> our universe.
>
>
No. *Descriptions* of Ill Bethisad exist in our universe. That's quite a
different thing. A description of something is not the thing itself.


> > In the same way, my Narbonese is very much a Romance language, with
> nothing out of the ordinary, but I would only put it in the IE tree if I
> was talking of its fictional setting (also Ill Bethisad). *Here*, it's
> primarily a conlang.
>
> If its features are Indo-European, then it's a fictional Indo-European
> language.
>
>
Yes, in that it's an IE language *in the fictional world*. That's the only
thing "fictional IE language" means.


> >>
> > To me, that's like saying that my imaginary brother should be considered
> a true member of my family, at the same level as my real life sister. It
> makes no sense whatsoever.
>
> No, it's like saying that your imaginary brother should be considered to
> be an imaginary member of your family.
>
>
And what advantage do you get out of it?
-- 
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.

http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/