Re: Comparison of philosophical languages

From: "Isaac A. Penzev" <isaacp@...>

> Mr. Nowicki, are you teachable?
> Pan napisal:
>
> <<"Milk," "mother," "is," and a few other words sound similar
> in all Indo-European languages. This seems to prove that
> names of basic ideas do not change.>>
>
> Stupidity! "Milk" is |lapte| in Romanian, |pienas| in Lithuanian, |galá|
in
> Ancient Greek, |thut| in Romani -- what other proof ye seek? And common
> origin of Ukrainian |je| and Lathvian |ir| (both mean "is") can be evident
> only to a specialist!
Interesting story behind the word "milk". The Indo-European root is *melg-,
but if you believe in the Glottalic Theory, it's *melk'-. Russian |moloko|
is an obvious cognate with English (but may be a loan from Germanic). Greek
|amelgô| and Latin MULGERE mean "to milk", and Tocharian A had |malke| for
"milk".

But similar words can be found in a diverse array of languages (such as
Semitic *mlg, Arabic |malaja| "to suck (the breast)" and Quechua |malq'a|
"throat"). This has led Merritt Ruhlen, among others, to propose a common
ancestor for ALL the world's languages, a Proto-World in fact. He came up
with *maliq'a "to suck(le); nurse; breast" (q' being an ejective uvular, as
in Georgian). I don't like the methodology, it's too Greenbergian and
doesn't rely that strictly on regular sound correspondences. This word is
probably onomatopoeic anyway. A Nostratic origin is VERY likely, however --
Bomhard and Kerns have the extended root *mal-iq'- "to draw (out), to suck
(out); to give suck, to suckle, to nurse", with cognates in Indo-European,
Afro-Asiatic, Finno-Ugric, Dravidian and Eskimo.

These things are, as you say, only evident to a specialist. Or an amateur
linguist who likes proto-languages and has been working on a conlang based
on Nostratic for about six or seven years (and is STILL far from
finished)....

> <<The English computer terms are very similar to Polish
> and Russian computer terms.>>
>
> Has a French |logiciel gratuit| something in common with English
|freeware|?

Ever wonder why the French word for "font" (as in TrueType, OpenType,
PostScript) is |police|? ~Danny~

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