Language & Evolution

[WarDude]

Languages are like living organisms?
We can say that each language is a different animal and a language family is an animal family.
The spoken language began from the same family/tribe/clan who developed it (Can be the first cell) and than after years it evolved into thousands of different languages (animals).
There are still common words/roots/orangs (such as em/om/am/im to describe mom in many languages).

So what do you say?

[Copperknickers II]

Indeed, the one is based on the other. A lot of parallels can be drawn between comparative linguistics and evolutionary theory, the theory of natural selection even applies to why some languages survive and others don't.

[Miroslav Klose]

Yes, all languages change and some are more similar to each other then others (same language group, area).

[MathiasOfAthens]

I read somewhere, not quite sure if its completely accurate, that the word for wolf and bear is similar in many european languages and sanskrit, which suggest a common link to a pre-Indo-European language or perhaps the Aryan Language.

[KingOfTheIsles]

Why would it be pre-IndoEuropean? The existing IE theory explains this perfectly well. Latin, Greek and Sanskrit (amongst others) all share cognates for "bear" which derive from pIE.

[MathiasOfAthens]

I dont think Im too familiar but were talking about the same things. I thought I read it as Pre-Indo though.

[Copperknickers II]

Well, the Indo-European languages are everything from Gaelic to Bengali to Latin. If the cognate also existed in Mandarin or Arabic, then it would have to be pre-Indo European.

[MathiasOfAthens]

I do know Basque and one other language are not Indo_european.

[Copperknickers II]

I do know Basque and one other language are not Indo_european.

Most languages aren't Indo-European ones, just the ones in India and Europe strangely enough .

[MathiasOfAthens]

I should of put europe in my sentence. I meant to say "I do know Basque and one other language in europe...."

[ivan_the_terrible]

There are a couple non-Indo-European languages in Europe: Finnish and Estonian are part of the Finno-Ugric group. So is Hungarian, if you subscribe to the link between Finnic and Ugric (it belongs to the Ugric part).

Basque is a total isolate as far as I know. It's likely the only surviver of the languages spoken in Europe before the arrival of Indo-European languages.

[pchalk]

languages have always interested me. Sami languages are also considered Finno-Ugric i think. i was always interested in the extinct branches like Dacian and East Germanic languages