linguistic & mathematics

[Bh. Krishnamurti]

 >Consider this example: The Turing test for Linguists
>
>Let us assume that we give a person a dictionary or literature
>from a present day language, say tamil or kannada.
>Also give him/her a set of "rules".  Will it be possible for
>him/her to recreate all the words of old tamil or kannada of
>2000 years ago ?.
>If this is possible, then I will accept that I am wrong, and so
>called linguistic evidence CAN be used as the MAIN foundation
>for reconstructing the history of a ancient civilization.
>
>Subrahmanya
>
>Dear Subramanya:
> From the challenge that you have thrown it is clear you have no
idea how linguistic reconstruction is done. No body does reconstruction
on the basis of the dictionary of ONE language.
        What kind of rules are you talking about?
You need to compare words which are known to be cognates from across a
family and use the principle of contrast and complementation to reconstruct
the proto-forms. Please look at my Telugu Verbal Bases
(1961 Univ of Cal. Berkeley). You can see how reconstruction is done
particularly with data from Dravidian. Within one language also you
have to compare different chronological layers (if such data are available
as for Kannada) and/or dialect forms (always involving cognate)and
reconstruct the oldest stage of that language. Please check out
a text book on historical linguistics from your library and study
the method used before you attack the time-tested comparative
reconstruction. Are we using the Indology List to educate each other on
elementary things? What a waste of time!
Bh. Krishnamurti
H.No. 12-13-1233, "Bhaarati"
Street No.9, Tarnaka
Hyderabad 500 017, A.P.
India
Telephone (R)(40)701 9665
E-mail: <bhk at hd1.vsnl.net.in>
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In vsnl the final character is letter l and not digit 1.