Re: Language family trees

At 10:31 PM 2/2/2003 +1100, you wrote:
> From <http://www.einst.ee/publications/language/history.html> (from
>the website posted by Jim Grossman about Estonian cases):
<snip>

>Is this saying that there's doubt as to whether languages evolve from
>others? Do I understand this correctly? Is this actually true (i.e.
>that people think otherwise)? How do these people explain things like
>French, Spanish etc. which have diverged in historical times? Is this
>some weird form of nationalism, or creationism applied to language? Or
>do they actually have a legitimate, explainable alternative? And how
>many is 'a significant proportion'?
   Well, I have to say that this guy is dreaming. I don't know of ANY
linguists who disavow the theory of language trees, applied to Uralic langs
or elsewhere. Indeed, most of the biggest names in linguistics here at
Harvard are teaching it (I'm taking Intro to PIE linguistics, PIE to Old
irish, and IE poetics this term). Further, saying the theory is wrong
because it makes Estonian too much like Finnish is just plain disingenuous
and facetious. Seems like a dumb statement to me...

    Aidan