3 ms·

would you recommend a more recent book comparable to "Empires of the Word" by Nicholas Ostler on the subject of languages ? I am really enjoying the book, but

would you recommend a more recent book comparable to "Empires of the Word" by Nicholas Ostler on the subject of languages ? I am really enjoying the book, but it's over 20 years old at this point. I wonder how much of the information is out of date now.

OutOfHere 2mo ago
[flagged]
- stereolambda 2mo ago
  Just out of sympathy cause I think there's a legitimate root to the religious point. Your epistemology comes across as extremely weak, with believing LLMs over scholars, and discriminating which scholars are legitimate based on agreeing with your beliefs. It would pay to at least familiarize yourself with the arguments of the other side, suspending in your mind the whole partisan angle. Honestly I don't think anyone actually powerful nowadays cares one bit about "PIE" religions. What could be happening is some revisionism relying on conveniently selective standards of rigor to bury other scholars. As this is a field famously relying on unclear and very messily transmitted evidence; and these kinds of problems are a very weak point of the humanities overall. But I don't follow this debate at all, so don't have a formed opinion.
  - OutOfHere 2mo ago
    > Honestly I don't think anyone actually powerful nowadays cares one bit about "PIE" religions. You obviously don't care about it, and I can see why any scholar of a Semite-based religion would want to suppress the connection, just as a Nazi would want to suppress the holocaust. To me it's a very big deal that the entirety of the PIE derivative religions were destroyed in Europe by the Semitic religious wave. I consider it nothing less than a major cultural massacre. What is weak to you is a big deal to someone else. There is no "other side" here. The word derivations and the cultural commonalities speak for themselves. For the first time in history, we have an intelligence that knows all notable modern and historical languages. It knows their words and antecedents. This is more significant than any scholar.
- muststopmyths 2mo ago
  The book I mentioned is about languages and their spread through history, not religion.
  - OutOfHere 2mo ago
    Even wrt languages, for the first time in history, we have an intelligence that knows all notable modern and historical languages. It knows their words and antecedents. This is more significant than any scholar.
TFNA 2mo ago
I don't recommend any books written for the general public. Too full of compromises, oversimplifications, and obsolete ideas. I can only recommend learning the field through the same course materials used in training the next generation of researchers. Of course, this is a very large time commitment.
- cmrdporcupine 2mo ago
  Honestly David Anthony's book ("Horse Wheel Language") is pretty good, no? Maybe a bit dry for "general public"? Also a bit old at this point?

OutOfHere 2mo ago

[flagged]

stereolambda 2mo ago
Just out of sympathy cause I think there's a legitimate root to the religious point. Your epistemology comes across as extremely weak, with believing LLMs over scholars, and discriminating which scholars are legitimate based on agreeing with your beliefs. It would pay to at least familiarize yourself with the arguments of the other side, suspending in your mind the whole partisan angle. Honestly I don't think anyone actually powerful nowadays cares one bit about "PIE" religions. What could be happening is some revisionism relying on conveniently selective standards of rigor to bury other scholars. As this is a field famously relying on unclear and very messily transmitted evidence; and these kinds of problems are a very weak point of the humanities overall. But I don't follow this debate at all, so don't have a formed opinion.
- OutOfHere 2mo ago
  > Honestly I don't think anyone actually powerful nowadays cares one bit about "PIE" religions. You obviously don't care about it, and I can see why any scholar of a Semite-based religion would want to suppress the connection, just as a Nazi would want to suppress the holocaust. To me it's a very big deal that the entirety of the PIE derivative religions were destroyed in Europe by the Semitic religious wave. I consider it nothing less than a major cultural massacre. What is weak to you is a big deal to someone else. There is no "other side" here. The word derivations and the cultural commonalities speak for themselves. For the first time in history, we have an intelligence that knows all notable modern and historical languages. It knows their words and antecedents. This is more significant than any scholar.
muststopmyths 2mo ago
The book I mentioned is about languages and their spread through history, not religion.
- OutOfHere 2mo ago
  Even wrt languages, for the first time in history, we have an intelligence that knows all notable modern and historical languages. It knows their words and antecedents. This is more significant than any scholar.

TFNA 2mo ago

I don't recommend any books written for the general public. Too full of compromises, oversimplifications, and obsolete ideas. I can only recommend learning the field through the same course materials used in training the next generation of researchers. Of course, this is a very large time commitment.

cmrdporcupine 2mo ago
Honestly David Anthony's book ("Horse Wheel Language") is pretty good, no? Maybe a bit dry for "general public"? Also a bit old at this point?