4 ms·
The problem is that there is very little material to work with because all non-PIE languages besides Basque have been lost and what little we have of Tyrsenian
by qwytw 3y ago
The problem is that there is very little material to work with because all non-PIE languages besides Basque have been lost and what little we have of Tyrsenian (and to an even much lesser Tartessian and some others) is really insufficient to make any substantial claims about their origins or shared features.
- jpmoral 3y ago> all non-PIE languages besides Basque have been lost Do you mean non-PIE European languages?
- qwytw 3y agoYes of course (I would generally expect most European linguists and anthropologists to be more interested in studying European languages due to obvious reasons).
- jpmoral 3y agoThanks. I asked because this is a topic that interests me that I don't know a lot about. I wasn't sure whether there was a theory that (almost) everything is PIE or whether there was an Asian component to your comment or something else that was in my unknown unknowns.
- edgyquant 3y ago[flagged]
- jpmoral 3y agoWow. I asked because this is a topic that interests me that I don't know a lot about. I wasn't sure whether there was a theory that (almost) everything is PIE or whether there was an Asian component to the comment or something else that was in my unknown unknowns. Don't jump down people's throats based on uncharitable readings of what they wrote.
- hzay 3y agoDravidian languages are extremely not lost.
- qwytw 3y agoI'm aware that an overwhelming majority of the global population use non IE languages. I just wouldn't expect that most research related to them would be published in English (and even if it was it would probably be much harder to understand for people who only speak English + other IE languages).
- edgyquant 3y agoThis other commenters are just being pedantic and have nothing to add. What you meant was perfectly valid English and there’s no need to explain you meant European languages when discussing European languages. However I do not believe your comment about the “vast majority” of languages is accurate. I indo-European languages make up about half of all languages on the planet (3.2 billion) and no other language family comes close.
- PeterisP 3y agoEven in Europe we have Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian as reasonably large non-indoeuropean languages; Maltese as an example of a Semitic EU language, and of course Turkic languages are also right there.