Re: Proto-Uralic?

Rob Haden <magwich78@...> writes:

> Unfortunately, there are relatively few resources for Proto-Uralic on the
> Web, and what is on there is relatively inconsistent.  I am actually in the
> process of compiling information for my own reconstruction of Proto-
> Uralic.  However, I can list some commonly accepted features of PU:
>
> [list of PU features snup]
Thank you!  Most of this I have already found elsewhere, but this
summary is very useful.

> This is only a brief summary of Proto-Uralic, and I hope to have a more
> descriptive grammar soon.  Do you have your own ideas regarding PU?  I
> would be interested in hearing them.
I have no particular ideas of my own about PU; I know too little
to build my own opinion.  I have seen the "reconstruction" done by
G. Decsy, but that is not worth the paper it is printed on.  He rejects
the comparative method, instead "reconstructing" for each cognate
set a minimal-change ancestral form *in isolation*, a "method" which
obviously gives false readings, yielding a result where no result is
to expect, namely in case of similar-looking non-cognates.
The resulting forms are often homonyms that "evolved" into
non-homonyms in the attested Uralic languages!

Decsy also confuses the historical linguistics term "proto-language"
with the homonymous term in language origins studies, claims that
Proto-Uralic had no more than the 400-something words he
"reconstructed", and that the speakers of Proto-Uralic did not use
names (an anthropological impossibility; and that even though
he "reconstructs" a PU word for "name").

I have also seen pages where it is claimed that Proto-Uralic never
existed, but rather that Uralic was a convergence area.  Apparently,
the field is less developed than IE historical linguistics, which might
be due to (1) the lack of attested ancient languages (imagine how
difficult it would be to reconstruct PIE from the modern IE languages
alone), and (2) the much smaller number of scholars working on
Uralic.  Another problem one meets in exploring Uralic historical linguistics
is that many of the materials available are written in Uralic languages ;-/

Jörg.

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