Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Language Mysteries

 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room Post Reply
49 messages over 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7  Next >>
DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 5911 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 1 of 49
14 April 2008 at 9:34am | IP Logged 
What are the great unsolved language riddles or mysteries ? At number one, I'd place the origins of the Basque language, Euskara. What others would you add ?
1 person has voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6199 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 2 of 49
14 April 2008 at 9:55am | IP Logged 
Other mysteries - at least to me:

- What was Proto-Indo-European like, exactly?
- What was PIE's precursor? How did they differ?
- How did human language originate? When? Where? How have the grammars changed over time? What about conceptualizations of time? How did the elaborate tense systems of the Indo-European languages, or the systems for conveying emotional nuances and formality levels in Japanese and Korean come about?
- Exactly when did the different language families branch off?
- Where do the language isolates (like Basque and Sumerian...) fit in?
- Deciphering various unknown or partly unknown languages, such as Linear A.
- Did anyone write earlier than the Sumerians? Did the Sumerians write anything novel-like/epic before "The Epic of Gilgamesh"?
- Will the existence of language super-families ever be widely accepted? How useful are they, conceptually? To what degree do they make sense?
- How many more ancient documents will turn up? What will they reveal about the ancient world?

Edit: removed Finnish from the list of language isolates. I have no idea why my I made that particular odd lapse, since I've read quite a bit about Finnish.


Edited by Volte on 15 April 2008 at 5:31am

2 persons have voted this message useful



Stewart Edwards
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 5913 days ago

18 posts - 18 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 3 of 49
14 April 2008 at 10:21am | IP Logged 
Volte wrote:
- How did human language originate? When? Where?
From memory Zecharia Sitchin has written that Aliens came from planet Nibiru to grab Earth gold. they worked hard extracting it, and after a while desired a workforce, so took apes and genetically engineered them to produce - you and me. After a while of slave labour we rebelled. The great flood came due to the close passage of Nibiru to earth wiping out most of us, but these aliens, who we treated as Gods, did save a few (due to a family battle between two brothers Enki and Enlil. Some of Enkis people who were working in Africa (Enlil Near East) decided to take human wifes and this caused a bit of a rucus. Anyhow after the flood it was decided to avoid the risk of a future human rebellion against the Gods/aliens that they would divide us into tribes speaking different languages, presumably so that instead of working as one, we would work separately and independently. If you believe this theory since these Gods have been absent we have been working back to one through the UN, NATO, EU, USA etc etc. If Sitchin is correct it would be interesting to see what will happen when his prediction of the return of the Gods/aliens happens.

Aparently it is written in ancient Near East records, I think he translated the Cunieform.

Interesting theory.

Edited by Stewart Edwards on 14 April 2008 at 10:24am

2 persons have voted this message useful



DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 5911 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 4 of 49
14 April 2008 at 10:31am | IP Logged 
I should've also added Linear A, as mentioned by Volte, and the Phaistos disk,

Phaistos Disk
1 person has voted this message useful



Zorndyke
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6718 days ago

374 posts - 382 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: Czech

 
 Message 5 of 49
14 April 2008 at 10:40am | IP Logged 
Volte, as you probably know it is simply impossible to determine the exact periods/dates you're asking for, even if we had a time machine.

However, I'm very interested in the sound and grammar of those ancient languages that we still can't decipher too, like Etruscan, Eteocretan, Pictish and many more.

Edited by Zorndyke on 14 April 2008 at 10:42am

1 person has voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6199 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 6 of 49
14 April 2008 at 1:01pm | IP Logged 
Zorndyke wrote:
Volte, as you probably know it is simply impossible to determine the exact periods/dates you're asking for, even if we had a time machine.


Exactly - which is why it's a mystery. I know there are some vague figures, and worded it accordingly.

1 person has voted this message useful



bushwick
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 6004 days ago

407 posts - 443 votes 
Speaks: German, Croatian*, English, Dutch
Studies: French, Japanese

 
 Message 7 of 49
14 April 2008 at 1:11pm | IP Logged 
finnish ain't isolated.

Edited by bushwick on 14 April 2008 at 1:13pm

1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6463 days ago

9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 8 of 49
14 April 2008 at 1:20pm | IP Logged 
Like Bushwick I wouldn't characterize Finnish as an isolate, - but there is one question that is somewhat mysterious about this language: for how long has Finnish (or rather its predecessors) been spoken in Finland? I saw during my last visit some quite extravagant claims in the National Museum of Helsinki about the age of the Finnish people and their language, - something like the Finns being there since the last ice age. I'm a bit sceptical, but what is the current scientific stance on this question - and are there any proofs?

It is also somewhat irritating to know that several of the extinct languages mentioned above were known to people who just didn't care to write anything that could make it possible to learn about them. For instance it is said that the Roman emperor Claudius knew at least some Etruscan, - but all knowledge about the language died with him.

The big question concerning the Basque language is of course whether it has any connection with the Caucasian languages, as it has often been claimed. During my first visit to Tbilisi in 1988 I discussed this with our guide, who was a language student at the local university. She claimed that her teachers generally assumed such a connection, but we didn't go into details about the foundations for this belief. ANd even if there once was a connection, the two areas have been isolated from each other for maybe 3000 years or more (since the Indoeuropean invasions started),- it can't be easy to prove any connection after such a long separation.

But all is not gloom and despair and a saddening feeling of loss - at least the Mayan manuscripts can apparently now be read, and that is nothing less than a sensation.

Edited by Iversen on 14 April 2008 at 1:41pm



1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 49 messages over 7 pages: 2 3 4 5 6 7  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.3438 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.