Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: alderson@netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: proto language and African languages
In-Reply-To: hvlcrt@maggie.cs.mcgill.ca's message of 24 Mar 1995 03:48:07 GMT
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Date: Sun, 26 Mar 1995 00:39:25 GMT
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In article <3ktfdn$qap@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> hvlcrt@maggie.cs.mcgill.ca
(Harry VALCOURT) writes:

>I'm not a linguist.

That's all right.  Many people aren't.

>but there is something i was wondering about. I've read a few articles about
>the proto-paleo-language that some linguists seem to have reconstructed from
>existing languages.

Emphasis on the word "some."  Very few.  Most linguists who specialize in the
historical study of languages do not accept any of these as valid.

>So far, i know that there are families like Indo-european , Altaic,
>Niger-congo ect. Are all the major families of languages included in the
>proto-language system ?

First, you should undertand that "proto-language" as used by historical
linguists is short-hand for the phrase "prototype reconstructed model of a
language ancestral to the languages under discussion."  There is not one proto-
language; rather, the results of any comparison of related languages yield
information that can be encoded in a proto-language.

(Note:  There is a linguist who specializes in the study of creoles who uses
the word "proto-language" to refer to that stage in the development of the
language facility in pre-human hominids just before modern-style language came
into being.  This is unrelated to the word as used by historical linguists:  He
is discussing a state of affairs tens or hundreds of thousands of years earlier
than we can achieve.)

>As far as i know, it has attempted to find a common root for most european and
>asian-amerindian tongues. but are african languages included ??

Those who attempt to set forth "Proto-World" etymologies do indeed use African
data as well as European, Asian, and American data.  They are simply misguided
(at best) in the feasibility of their attempts.
-- 
Rich Alderson		[Tolkien quote temporarily removed in favour of
alderson@netcom.com	 proselytizing comment below --rma]

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