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Something very cool about the Georgian language is that its family, the Kartvelian family, has no known relation to any other language family. It's one of the w

by GaggiX 2y ago

Something very cool about the Georgian language is that its family, the Kartvelian family, has no known relation to any other language family. It's one of the world's primary language families. Its origin, including the alphabet, is very mysterious.

alephnerd 2y ago
If you think that's cool, then reading about Paleo-Siberian languages would be down your alley. Lots of language isolates and interesting paleohistory. Yenesian will never stop wrinkling my brain.
- ane 2y ago
  Your sentence makes it sound like Yeniseian languages are language isolates, but what is absolutely astounding is that Yeniseian languages seem to form a family with the Na-Dene languages of North America. Two language families separated by the Bering strait over 15000 years ago!
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Yep! And it's absolutely amazing! The distant brethren of Navajo basically destroyed the Han Empire 2000 years ago.
Loughla 2y ago
That actually is really cool. That implies a certain degree of isolation for A very long time. Do genetics in that area have any interesting patterns?
- skowalak 2y ago
  It can imply isolation, but not necessarily. It is also possible that there are some precursor languages, of which no evidence could be found (yet). Another good example are the Koreanic languages of which modern Korean is a member. The Ket language of central Siberia has long been believed to be isolate, but was later classified as a member of the Dene–Yeniseian language family (or at least proposed, afaik this research is still ongoing).
  - Loughla 2y ago
    That's fair, but also just as interesting. What are the chances that language is older than we thought? And if decent chances, how much older? Were early hominids capable of speaking? Wild to think about.
    - 0points 2y ago
      > What are the chances that language is older than we thought? This find is about a script in an unknown language. The question about how old spoken languages are is of course unrelated and can't be answered since it predates history ;-)
bergie 2y ago
The alphabet is so cool, strong resemblance to Tolkien's elvish. Especially when you find a ruined castle or monastery in the mountains with that script on the gate. Though I recall on my first trip there being told that the origin of the Georgian script was the developer of the Armenian script tossing some spaghetti on the wall.

by GaggiX 2y ago

alephnerd 2y ago

If you think that's cool, then reading about Paleo-Siberian languages would be down your alley. Lots of language isolates and interesting paleohistory. Yenesian will never stop wrinkling my brain.

ane 2y ago
Your sentence makes it sound like Yeniseian languages are language isolates, but what is absolutely astounding is that Yeniseian languages seem to form a family with the Na-Dene languages of North America. Two language families separated by the Bering strait over 15000 years ago!
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Yep! And it's absolutely amazing! The distant brethren of Navajo basically destroyed the Han Empire 2000 years ago.

Loughla 2y ago

That actually is really cool. That implies a certain degree of isolation for A very long time. Do genetics in that area have any interesting patterns?

skowalak 2y ago
It can imply isolation, but not necessarily. It is also possible that there are some precursor languages, of which no evidence could be found (yet). Another good example are the Koreanic languages of which modern Korean is a member. The Ket language of central Siberia has long been believed to be isolate, but was later classified as a member of the Dene–Yeniseian language family (or at least proposed, afaik this research is still ongoing).
- Loughla 2y ago
  That's fair, but also just as interesting. What are the chances that language is older than we thought? And if decent chances, how much older? Were early hominids capable of speaking? Wild to think about.
  - 0points 2y ago
    > What are the chances that language is older than we thought? This find is about a script in an unknown language. The question about how old spoken languages are is of course unrelated and can't be answered since it predates history ;-)

bergie 2y ago

The alphabet is so cool, strong resemblance to Tolkien's elvish. Especially when you find a ruined castle or monastery in the mountains with that script on the gate. Though I recall on my first trip there being told that the origin of the Georgian script was the developer of the Armenian script tossing some spaghetti on the wall.