This was intended as a PM. Delete/move if preferred. ---
DD: The following is a comment by a linguist who compares Greek, Sanskrit, Sumerian, Akkadian & European language etymology, sometimes with African & Asian language data. I often compare his results with my knowledge of Malay & Aztec. - Kyriakos Samelis has left a new comment on the post "Indo-European Connections":
"About Kloekhorst nini(n)k though, Kloekhorst thinks appealing a comparison of Oettinger with Gr. νεῖκος (neîkos) "quarrel, wrangle, strife" and some other Baltic words: Perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *neik- (“to attack, start vehemently”) and cognate with Lithuanian ap-ni̇̀kti (“to attack”), su-ni̇̀kti (“to attack”), Latvian nikns (“bad, grim, vehement”), maybe also Russian в-никнуть (v-niknutʹ), про-никнуть (pro-niknutʹ). See also νίκη (níkē). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BD%CE%B5%E1%BF%96%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%82 If you remember I have compared (Greek) neikos with (Sumerian) nig "female dog; lioness"; maybe more "nig" words share the same etymology." ---
DD: This (Sumerian) "nig" appears completely different from (Latin) nigra "black" and from my own research results indicating that (Latin/Latin-descendent) nigra/negro derived from "darkness inside ancient dome hut without windows, doorway or firelight" cf. mongolu@Mbuti: dome hut; mengelap@Malay: darken.
_______________________________ Methodology The application of the comparative method in the reconstruction of a proto-language entails several steps.[1]
First, gathering a list of possible cognates from the languages in question (usually basic vocabulary, as these have a lesser tendency to be borrowed).
Second, analyzing the words to determine whether there are any systematic sound correspondences (or sound laws) between the two sets.
Third, reconstructing the original forms (or proto-sounds) of the sounds being compared. This may take several factors into consideration, including directionality (the idea that some sound changes tend to occur in a given direction, but not vice-versa), the numbers of languages in which the sounds are found (a sound found in most of the languages in question is more likely to be the original proto-sound), and economy (postulating a reconstruction that would involve the smallest number of phonetic changes in its descendants[note 1]).
Fourth, analyzing any similar correspondence sets. For instance, one sound correspondence may have an original sound *p remaining /p/ in three languages and evolving into /b/ in the remaining language, while another may have a proto-sound *p remaining /p/ in two languages, becoming /b/ in another, and /v/ in the last one. In such cases, it must be determined whether the difference is due to conditioning (e.g., *p changing into /v/ only before certain vowels), or due to there being in fact two separate phonemes in the proto-language.
Fifth, determining whether the phoneme inventory of the reconstructed proto-language is plausible. Languages tend to have symmetrical phonologies, and a symmetrical reconstruction would be preferred. For instance, it would be unlikely for a language to possess the voiceless stops /p/, /t/, and /k/, but only two voiced counterparts /b/ and /g/. Additionally, some types of phoneme inventories never occur (for instance, there are no languages without vowels).
Sixth, using the reconstructed proto-sounds to reconstruct morphemes or words in the proto-language.
The comparative method versus pseudolinguistics[edit] Many pseudolinguistic theories are created by amateur non-linguists who not only have no idea what the comparative method entails, but also are totally unaware of its existence. These pseudoscientists imagine that genetic relationships can be determined by merely listing similar words. This is a flawed methodology, however.
For one thing, lexical similarities are statistically certain to occur by chance. Because all languages have countless thousands of words, if you compare any two languages, even ones that have nothing to do with each other whatsoever, many words will be similar just by chance. Similarly, if you take a given word (like "or"), it is to be expected that of the many thousands of different languages in the world, some or even many will express the same concept with a coincidentally similar pronunciation. Since languages (entities with countless thousands of words each) evolve, a word may split into different and often unrecognizable forms, and unrelated words may coincidentally came to resemble each other. It is simply not possible for coincidences not to exist. For instance, in the Australian Mbabaram language, the word for 'dog' is dog. This is not evidence enough of a close relation between Mbabaram and English. Mbabaram is a part of a language family in which the original word for 'dog' is gudaga, and dog is its expected outcome in Mbabaram.[16] By contrast, the English word dog originally referred to one breed of dog. The original word for dog lives on in English as hound, the ancient word cognate with German hund and Latin canis.[17]
In addition, borrowing (either between the two languages or from a common third one) is another possible reason for lexical overlap. While listing large numbers of similarities in vocabulary, pseudolinguists simply assume that they must all be due to genetic relatedness, and more often than not completely ignore the possibility of borrowing.
Pseudolinguists who are completely clueless about historical linguistics are apt to dismiss etymologies involving dissimilar words because of their perceived implausibility, but in reality, common origin does not necessarily lead to similarity of form, and similarity of form is not necessarily due to common origin. Through the comparative method, relationships can be demonstrated to exist between words that have no sounds in common. Consider the Portuguese word chão (meaning "flat" or "floor"). If you look up its etymology up in a dictionary, you will see it comes from the Latin planus (meaning "flat").[18][19][20] A pseudolinguist would likely scoff at such a derivation, objecting that the words are completely different and coincide only in meaning; for the pseudolinguist, this proves that linguists are just grasping at straws and that "mainstream" linguistics is a sham.[note 2] But there is a method to the (apparent) madness. Let us take the consonants of the first syllable. Is pl>ch a known Latin-Portuguese sound correspondence? Why, yes, it is.[19] Examples of this sound change include pluvia>chuva (rain),[20] plorare>chorar (to cry),[21] plumbum>chumbo (lead),[22] plaga>chaga (sore, wound),[21] plicare>chegar (to arrive),[21][23][24] plūmācium>chumaço (cushion, stuffing),[25] and plenum>cheio (full).[22][26] There is also a sound correspondence by which Latin -anus and -anis become ão in Portuguese, such as in sanus>são (healthy), vanus>vão (empty, vain), manus>mão (hand), canis>cão (dog), and panis>pão (bread).[27][20][28] Hence, we find that chão is what we would get if Latin had passed planus on to Portuguese. Language change follows certain rules, and the comparative method provides a way to determine what those rules are. To base etymologies simply on superficial similarity, as many pseudolinguists do, is not enough.
quote:Originally posted by DD'eDeN: Your post box is still full.
This was intended as a PM. Delete/move if preferred. ---
DD: The following is a comment by a linguist who compares Greek, Sanskrit, Sumerian, Akkadian & European language etymology, sometimes with African & Asian language data. I often compare his results with my knowledge of Malay & Aztec. - Kyriakos Samelis has left a new comment on the post "Indo-European Connections":
"About Kloekhorst nini(n)k though, Kloekhorst thinks appealing a comparison of Oettinger with Gr. νεῖκος (neîkos) "quarrel, wrangle, strife" and some other Baltic words: Perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *neik- (“to attack, start vehemently”) and cognate with Lithuanian ap-ni̇̀kti (“to attack”), su-ni̇̀kti (“to attack”), Latvian nikns (“bad, grim, vehement”), maybe also Russian в-никнуть (v-niknutʹ), про-никнуть (pro-niknutʹ). See also νίκη (níkē). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BD%CE%B5%E1%BF%96%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%82 If you remember I have compared (Greek) neikos with (Sumerian) nig "female dog; lioness"; maybe more "nig" words share the same etymology." ---
DD: This (Sumerian) "nig" appears completely different from (Latin) nigra "black" and from my own research results indicating that (Latin/Latin-descendent) nigra/negro derived from "darkness inside ancient dome hut without windows, doorway or firelight" cf. mongolu@Mbuti: dome hut; mengelap@Malay: darken.
posted
A name of one month in Sumeria (in a specific region of South Iraq) was Nig-Enlila. Enlil was a god. I don't know if Nig meant female/mother/month, but it seems plausible, though a variant of gyne/gen/kin would be more expected IMO. -
image: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PKGpRSL8LXY/Wzu9ckKQEjI/AAAAAAACP7c/HXWxkbFqeFo6r7VlWQulqLTZvxscgdTYQCLcBGAs/s640/hobby-lobby_01.jpg Hobby Lobby's illegal antiquities shed light on a lost, looted ancient city in Iraq The text, written in Sumerian, outlines the monthly rations that female weavers employed by the state received from the local administration in Irisagrig, where such rations tended to be unusually generous. Puzur-Iškur is known from other Irisagrig texts as having been an “overseer of the weavers.” The month name Nig-Enlila was only used in Irisagrig and some nearby settlements, which confirms that the text has to come from this area [Credit: Eckart Frahm/Yale University] Frahm, who is one of only a few hundred people worldwide who can accurately read cuneiform texts, was taken to an undisclosed location in the city, where he had about two and half days to study these texts in a warehouse in which they were being temporarily stored. Each tablet was about the size of a cell phone, and many were in a poor condition, with salt incrustations covering large portions of their surfaces.
“It seems likely that many of these tablets come from the same archive, which must have fallen prey to destruction at some point in time, with the tablets falling on the ground with one side exposed to water and the other protected,” notes Frahm.
“It was a conveyer belt-like experience,” says Frahm. “I had about three or four minutes to examine each tablet, and some were more difficult than others to decipher. On each tablet there may be a great secret that you might uncover if you spent the time with it.”
The tablets were still in the original packages in which they had been sent to the U.S., where they were seized by customs officials before they made it to their intended destination. “They had been declared as being ceramic tiles valued at $300. This is how customs officials determined that something was not quite right,” says Frahm.
One of the challenges of deciphering these tablets, says Frahm, is that the cuneiform writing system, which comprises about 900 signs, is very complex, and “each of these signs has many different possible readings depending on the context and on the time the tablet was written.”
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