Re: On Relating Languages

>(b)How might I show relationship between, for example, one language with 5
>vowels ([a],[e],[i],[o],[u]), another with only 3 ([a],[e],[u]), and a
>third with a long list of glides, diphthongs and 'soft' (as in Russian)
>prononunciations. I suppose what I am getting at is, at what point is a
>language UNRELATABLE to the next?
with all the complex rules of sound evolution, you can find a way to link
everything if your rules can be a little logic:

If you avoid

/y/ -> /{~/
/p\/ -> /q_h/
/tS/ -> /b_</

it will be ok

But if the only way is to make these kind of changes to link you languages
you'll have to make inter-states:

/tS/ -> /t_h/ -> /d/ -> /b/ -> /b_</


I don't think it is possible that two languages and to be unable to find
some caracteristics that would link them

I think I read somewhere about hypothétic links to Basque

Some linguists argued that some caracteristics could link Basque to some
native american languages. And they had more points than only the ergativity

And others gived points to link it with japanese, ouralic, and african
languages


Others that linked Basque with Ainu

That would be great: they link to isolates at the same time and solve two
families


link two languages without historic evidences (with with it is easy to link
families like romance and germanic ones) or archeologic proofs (to link IE
languages)

but any other links are hypothesis because we know that related languages
can be very different and unrelated languages can be similar due to the
little number of morphemes usable in languages (I talk of the most frequent
ones, exceptions being nothing else... than exceptions), and of the general
tendensies of languages

People that don't know languages history or linguistic will think of
diffrent links that they are

My friends are always surprised when I say them that French and English (the
two languages they all learn at school and know well enough to judge of
their similarity) are not directly related by languages families and that
they are separated by thousands years of separated evolution

They have so much borrowed from each others that they seem closely related


So to conclude: without a conhistory (is that a word usable here?) you can
make all the links you want between your languages