Timeline for About how much does language typology correlate with genetic relationships among languages?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 21, 2017 at 16:33 | answer | added | Sir Cornflakes | timeline score: 0 | |
| May 2, 2012 at 23:59 | comment | added | Gaston Ümlaut | @Cerberus I'm not certain about Darwin, but biologists certainly talk about 'sister species'. I'm not sure I follow what you're asking, but the whole notion of 'family tree' of languages is based on the idea of languages as individuals. Of course the reality is much more complicated, as it also is with family trees of species. | |
| May 2, 2012 at 15:40 | comment | added | Cerberus | @GastonÜmlaut: Okay, but why do you say a language was compared to a species, not to an individual? Words like "sister language" seem to point to individuals. So then it would be the gradual change that occurs in languages between a mother and her daughter that makes them resemble species rather than individuals. So the "genetic" part in languages is a bit of a mixed metaphor. Did Darwin also speak of "sister species"? | |
| May 2, 2012 at 8:25 | comment | added | Gaston Ümlaut | @Cerberus You're talking about the idea of change within a species, certainly something that was well understood. But the idea of linking different species together in a family tree with a common ancestor was pretty novel and in doing this he was wanting to emulate the success of linguistics in creating family trees of different languages. | |
| May 2, 2012 at 6:47 | comment | added | Cerberus | @GastonÜmlaut: Oh, that is interesting, though "borrowed" sounds a bit strong: reading the quotation in the LL article, I get the impression that he simply compared the two rather than actively applying the model used in one field to another. Consider how everybody knew that animals could be bred to weaken and strengthen certain qualities, and how humans inherit certain features from their ancestors and pass them on: the general model of a family with descendants and ancestors and siblings was in common use. Darwin's comparison seems more like an illustration. | |
| May 2, 2012 at 5:49 | comment | added | Gaston Ümlaut | @Cerberus I think it's interesting to note that the ideas of a 'family tree', shared inheritance and descent with modification were originally developed in linguistics and later borrowed by Charles Darwin and his successors, as discussed at LanguageLog. | |
| Apr 30, 2012 at 21:27 | comment | added | Cerberus | @GastonÜmlaut: Right, I have heard it used like that, but it always seemed a bit ambiguous, as you say, so I asked just to be sure. | |
| Apr 30, 2012 at 1:59 | answer | added | Leah Velleman | timeline score: 10 | |
| Apr 30, 2012 at 1:46 | vote | accept | James Grossmann | ||
| Apr 29, 2012 at 23:13 | answer | added | Colin Fine | timeline score: 8 | |
| Apr 28, 2012 at 9:24 | comment | added | Gaston Ümlaut | @Cerberus Yes, in historical linguistics 'genetic relationship' is commonly-used in this way. Sometimes the term 'genealogical relationship' is used to avoid this confusion with biological genetics. | |
| Apr 28, 2012 at 8:12 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackLinguist/status/196149903771185152 | ||
| Apr 28, 2012 at 5:46 | comment | added | Cerberus | Just to clarify: by "genetic relationships" you mean things like "sister language", etc. (not the actual DNA of the speakers)? | |
| Apr 28, 2012 at 5:15 | history | asked | James Grossmann | CC BY-SA 3.0 |