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Re: OT: Proto-languages as national/international languages

From:Joe <joe@...>
Date:Tuesday, January 21, 2003, 22:14
On Tuesday 21 January 2003 12:02 pm, Danny Wier wrote:
> Okay, this idea is probably way too unrealistic and impractical for the > real world. But I had this "vision" of the not-so-distant future, where > many of the world's large, multicultural/multiethnic nations, in the spirit > of democracy and diversity, adopt proto-languages (or proto-language > vocabularies using the grammar of extant languages). > > There has been a Sanskrit movement in India (or at least North India) since > India became a state, if I'm not mistaken. I'm sure the EU (except maybe > for Greece) has those who want Latin as a common tongue. > > So, I was thinking... China could use a reconstructed Old Chinese (or at > least a known Middle Chinese, like that of the Tang dynasty). Or better > yet, Proto-Sino-Tibetan, bringing Tibetans and Burmans into the fold. South > India could use a common Dravidian language, which would be better than > Classical Tamil (now that Telugu, not Tamil, is the leading Dravidian > language). Iran, Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan (Baluchistan in > particular), Tajikistan, and the Kurdish communities of Iraq and Turkey > could use Proto-Iranian. Grabar, or Classical Armenian, would unite the > scattered Armenian communities in Istanbul to Jerusalem with the Republic > of Armenia. And imagine what a Proto-Austronesian could do -- bring > together Malaysia, Indonesia, Madagascar, Philippines and various islands > of the Pacific from New Zealand to Hawaii. > > And I can't wait to see a worthy reconstruction of Proto-Amerind. Even > though Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut won't be involved. A politically sensitive > issue of course would be a common North Caucasian unity, linking Chechnya > and Daghestan (in Russia) and Abkhazia (in Georgia); that might create a > difficulty since 1) North Caucasian may be two or three families, not one, > and 2) North Caucasians may be Muslim or Christian, and religion plays a > major part in cultural identity for these Republics. > > The United States, very certainly the most linguistically diverse nation on > the planet, could be served with a Proto-World, but of course that may > never be discovered; it's not as easy as charting the progress of the > species of Earth, since languages don't leave fossils. Nostratic would be > easier, but that would leave out Chinese, Tagalog and Vietnamese while > including Arabic, Greek, Hungarian and probably Korean and Japanese. Can't > always get what you want, as the Stones song goes....
I think it's a bit of a supposition that the US is the most linguistically diverse...Nepal has something like 80 languages, and India more, I think. Also, proto-World doesn't/hasn't been proven to exist.
> Europe? Latin would be the easiest, but Proto-Indo-European would cover the > whole EU except the Basque Country, but what if Finland, Hungary and/or > Estonia joins....
Finland is already a member, and Hungary and Estonia -are- joining.
> This would go completely against the IAL movement, since the intent is not > to produce a modern, simplified common language, and this would likely be > aimed much more towards the "educated" rather than the masses. Unless, you > take the vocabulary of a proto-language and build a simple, regular and > practical IAL from that. It's been tried with I-E. I'd love to see an > Afro-Asiatic IAL; that would link Hausa in Nigeria and Dahalo in Tanzania > with Arabic and Neo-Assyrian in Iraq -- and in the dimension of time, > ancient Egyptian. > > Just some crazy thoughts at 6:00 AM from an insomniac who's been fighting > the flu and other stuff for a couple weeks now, so there's a good chance > for delirium.... ~Danny~