Argumentation, debate, and dialectic in Science, applied to Linguistics

The title is somehow formal, but I couldn’t find a better one.
I tried to talk with my uncle again about Indo-European: I don’t care about a thousand ignorants saying “PIE is an invention”, but it’s obvious I don’t like a learned Latin professor like him promoting this idea among his students…

So, after introducing the question (“how are things in the Uni?..Oh…hmm, and, about Indo-European…”), and beginning the debate, we ended up by saying:

(Me) – How can you say you are objective? The whole family believes you (and not me) only because you are a Latin professor, but

… Read the rest

Doubtfully proven hypothesis: Holocaust vs. Revisionism, Creationism vs. Evolution, and Indo-European vs. Latin & Greek?

About the Proto-Indo-European language, one could say that a “proven hypothesis” is a fact. It’s not a certainty and it never will be until we invent time machines, but it’s a well-supported and widely accepted theory. With this kind of theory, it’s not a question of proven or unproven, because you can’t ever prove it. As far as the PIE reconstruction goes, there are a lot of competing reconstructions, and we’ll never know which one is right, although certain features can be established with a high level of confidence.

After reading what some pretentious guys from textkit.com had to … Read the rest “Doubtfully proven hypothesis: Holocaust vs. Revisionism, Creationism vs. Evolution, and Indo-European vs. Latin & Greek?”

Wikipedia articles: accuracy, vandalism, spam and administrators

I have discovered (among tons of anti-spam spam) a mail from a Wikipedian asking for collaboration on the discussion about some controversy regarding an article on Dnghu’s project, about Indo-European language revival – as far as I’ve read, it seems to deal with the question “is Modern Indo-European as Modern Hebrew?” – Even if I wanted to participate, I don’t know what else could I say, that is not already written down in our grammar.

Some months ago I saw that some links were coming from the Wikipedia article “Europaio” – of course, I felt excited … Read the rest “Wikipedia articles: accuracy, vandalism, spam and administrators”

Tamil vs. Sanskrit, or Indian ‘official classical languages’, and the first tongue in India (AKA. Indus Valley Civilization language)

I have read and heard many stupidities regarding linguistic status and language differences:

– Brazilian is a different language (i.e. not Portuguese), because Galician is a language also (yes, Galician is interestingly enough a ‘language’ which stops in the administrative division between Spain and Portugal – more or less like Valencian and Catalan).
– French is a beautiful language, and because of that many African countries learn it (yes, South-American Indians also wanted to learn Spanish because it was so cool).
– English comes from Latin, as French, Spanish or Portuguese (no comments)…
– Language x (say, Esperanto, Spanish or … Read the rest “Tamil vs. Sanskrit, or Indian ‘official classical languages’, and the first tongue in India (AKA. Indus Valley Civilization language)”

Indo-European Grammar, 1st Printed Version in English, translated into Deutsch, français, español, italiano, Nederlands, Polski, português, Russian, and other languages thanks to direct web machine translation

The Final Version of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, 1st Printed Edition, is ready for the Printer, after the Indo-European Revival News.

For more information on this release and the changes made since last version, please go to the Indo-European language Association.

The association has some collaborative websites prepared for volunteers ready to add some translated sections of the book, and also for experts and people interested in IE languages, to add information about the Proto-Indo-European language and its revival as a modern language within the European Union, namely Indo-European (in English), Indo-Europeen (en Français), Indogermanisch (auf Deutsch), indoeuropeo… Read the rest “Indo-European Grammar, 1st Printed Version in English, translated into Deutsch, français, español, italiano, Nederlands, Polski, português, Russian, and other languages thanks to direct web machine translation”

Translation of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European from English into Spanish: Gramática del indoeuropeo moderno

The two introductory sections of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, the main work of the Indo-European Revival Association, has been translated into Spanish as Gramática del indoeuropeo moderno.

The book is, as always, licensed under GFDL – CC-by-sa, so that everyone can copy, redistribute, modify, etc. the work and indeed translate it into any possible language, and then edit and/or publish it.

Indo-European language or Indo-European languages?

I’ve recently received an email from a new reader who wanted to share with us “his language”, namely a ‘modernized Indo-European’, which he had been working on for very very long before we began our public work at the Indo-European Revival Association, and which he deems “a more modern version of our Indo-European“.

After telling him he was not the first who show up with such a project (there are at least one or two more out there in the Net), I told him very clearly what our opinion about IE is:

A) There are different schools about how … Read the rest “Indo-European language or Indo-European languages?”

Indo-European Grammar, First Printed Edition, with maps, summary tables, etymologies, PIE phonology and syntax…

Yes, we eventually decided to print some copies of our Indo-European Grammar – with public subsidies, we will be able to release some dozens in this first printed edition.

Our objetive was to translate version 2.x (now near 2.2) into Spanish, German and French, to post news in Modern Indo-European and to begin with the Syntax volume, but now the order has changed.

We plan to publish an improved edition (revised by Indo-European scholars), which will probably be called already version 3.x. We plan to include more information about IE dialects and about Proto-Indo-European syntax, and to make printed copies … Read the rest “Indo-European Grammar, First Printed Edition, with maps, summary tables, etymologies, PIE phonology and syntax…”

The ‘Grin Report’ and its pretended support of Esperanto over Indo-European as European Union’s official language

We have received at Indo-European Language Revival Association an email suggesting us learning more about Esperanto, describing its advantages, and especially talking about the Grin Report, an expert study supposedly favoring Esperanto as the only language for the European Union. This mail comes probably from a reader of Spanish newspapers who read about recent news on Indo-European revival, who possibly didn’t read about our proposal, maybe because we use mainly English in our writings and he just can’t speak but Spanish and Esperanto…

I think that specially any study written about linguistic policy – in our … Read the rest “The ‘Grin Report’ and its pretended support of Esperanto over Indo-European as European Union’s official language”