Some ethnocentrics believes all languages would be descended from their own particular.  Or at least the favourite language they personally have.  They start from well-known words in any of the 300 largest languages.  Such may vaguely resemble words for something the person associates with it.  That the association is far from universal does not occur to the person.  Then he or she claims the foreign word to be derived from the word in the favourite language.  Which is treated as proof of the entire language being this.

This idea is not only ethnocentric but thoughtless too.  Why would one’s particular favourite language not have changed over time?  Why would only other languages have changed to the incomprehensible?  All languages with native speakers evidently change over time.  I can imagine some languages changing faster than others.  They say certain languages have kept many older traits.  But then it can also be documented the language has changed.  There is even a rule saying languages change to the incomprehensible in about 600 years.  This is of cause just an average.  I think this can be presupposed to be true if reason to think otherwise is lacking.

To determine if languages are related one has to compare them systematically.  Not just vocabulary but phonotactics and grammar too.  It then turns out similarities usually are inconsistent.  They have to be consistent to indicate the language really being related.  Otherwise they could as well be a matter of chance.  Something one always has to consider.

Languages with few native speakers are often hard to document.  They may also be documented only in modern times.  Don’t we know how they changed it becomes hard to know if they are related to each other too.  However, for well-documented languages their origin can be traced.  Their origin then turns out to be many different ones.  Even the 300 largest languages have at least 20 separate origins.  From a scientific point of view this makes perfect sense.  The current human species has spread out over tens of thousands of years.  When enough millennia have passed a common origin becomes untraceable.

Uploaded on the 31st of October 2024.