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They share grammatical peculiarities lost in intermediate languages. Navajo introduced to Ket elders say they are almost inter-intelligible.
by angiosperm 3y ago
They share grammatical peculiarities lost in intermediate languages. Navajo introduced to Ket elders say they are almost inter-intelligible.
- mcswell 3y agoI have not heard that "inter-intelligible" claim, do you have a link/ citation for it?
- yongjik 3y agoI'll bet a keg of beer that they are not in fact mutually intelligible.
- batch12 3y agoNo dog in this fight, but I was nerd sniped into doing some googling. I guess this is what they're referencing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den%C3%A9%E2%80%93Yeniseian_languages https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den%C3%A9%E2%80%93Yeniseian_...
- yongjik 3y ago(Disclaimer: IANAL) Well, it's remarkable if these languages are related, but even so, we're talking about two languages that diverged thousands of years ago, maybe 10k years. Probably in the same ballpark as Proto-Indo-European or even older. That is, these two languages would be about as mutually intelligible as, say, English and Albanian, or less.
- angiosperm 3y agoI have doubts as well. "Almost" may be carrying a heavy load there. People are just really good at communicating, face to face, over difficult barriers, particularly when they share cultural underpinnings. But I don't speak any language in the family, and can only go on what they say.
- rafram 3y agoWhy do people get so attached to pet linguistic theories of all things that they feel the need to make up informants, forage sources, and generally lie in order to “prove” a claim that has literally no value if it’s not true? It’s totally plausible that the languages are related, and that’s awesome! But the evidence for them being mutually intelligible just isn’t there.