nairi Posted November 5, 2002 Author Report Share Posted November 5, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Twilight Bark:[QBHowever, indo-european lexicon in the Armenian language is not among them.[/QB]What do you mean by this? That Indo-European lexicon should be considered "native" Armenian or not? quote:I hope I did not upset you too much. And I certainly do not wish to discourage you. You have my best wishes in your intellectual journey. May you end up much farther than I will ever be. That is what I wish for my children, and I wish the same for you.I hope I didn't upset you too much. Thanks for your wishes though. I hope the same for your children. Nairi [ November 05, 2002, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: nairi ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twilight Bark Posted November 5, 2002 Report Share Posted November 5, 2002 quote:Originally posted by nairi:What do you mean by this? That Indo-European lexicon should be considered "native" Armenian or not?Armenian. Becasue at the time of formation of the Armenian nation, the constituent were almost certainly speaking an indoeuropean tongue. I suspect their ancestors had been speaking proto-indoeuropean of some sort a long time before then, but that's another topic. When I have more time. quote: quote:I hope I did not upset you too much. And I certainly do not wish to discourage you. You have my best wishes in your intellectual journey. May you end up much farther than I will ever be. That is what I wish for my children, and I wish the same for you.I hope I didn't upset you too much. Thanks for your wishes though. I hope the same for your children.I also wish you to get your own phrases. TB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nairi Posted November 5, 2002 Author Report Share Posted November 5, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Twilight Bark: quote:Originally posted by nairi:What do you mean by this? That Indo-European lexicon should be considered "native" Armenian or not?Armenian. Becasue at the time of formation of the Armenian nation, the constituent were almost certainly speaking an indoeuropean tongue. I suspect their ancestors had been speaking proto-indoeuropean of some sort a long time before then, but that's another topic. When I have more time.See, I disagree with this. Yes, proto-Armenians had most probably been speaking PIE before they called themselves "Hay". However, once again, PIE was not invented by proto-Armenians. Nor were proto-Armenians the first to speak PIE. How can we know this? Because PIE had been spoken LONG before proto-Armenians even arrived on the scene. Therefore, like Germanic languages, proto-Armenian borrowed PIE lexicon and grammatical structure. Unlike Germanic languages however, Armenian managed to break away from the standard IE languages through time. This brings me back to my earlier statement that words like "kov" and "katoo", which are almost certainly IE, have been Armenianized over time, but they were not Armenian in their origin, very much like "trashvel". This is speaking purely from a linguistic/philological point of view by the way. If it is true however, that it were the proto-Armenians who invented PIE, then I will agree with you that the origins of kov and katoo are Armenian. But until then, like you, I will unfortunately have to resume quoting other people's works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twilight Bark Posted November 5, 2002 Report Share Posted November 5, 2002 quote:Originally posted by nairi:See, I disagree with this. Yes, proto-Armenians had most probably been speaking PIE before they called themselves "Hay". However, once again, PIE was not invented by proto-Armenians. Nor were proto-Armenians the first to speak PIE. How can we know this? You plainly don't. quote:Because PIE had been spoken LONG before proto-Armenians even arrived on the scene. Proto-Armenians "arriving at the scene" is in the imaginations of some linguistic historians, and makes a cute little story. Shame there is no evidence for their arriving from anywhere. But it sticks because it makes Armenians feel European. And Armenians being relatively "unimportant", nobody cares enough to enforce a standard of evidence before parroting it. quote:Therefore, like Germanic languages, proto-Armenian borrowed PIE lexicon and grammatical structure.Really? You were there? Is there evidence showing that "proto-Armenians" (whatever that might mean, if anything) were not among the original PIE speakers? quote:Unlike Germanic languages however, Armenian managed to break away from the standard IE languages through time.Completely wrong. All IE languages "broke away" from the "standard". That is, they evolved. They diverged because of being isolated from one another. There is nothing special about Germanic languages in terms of having higher fidelity to the original "standard" (which was probably quite fuzzy to begin with). quote:This brings me back to my earlier statement that words like "kov" and "katoo", which are almost certainly IE, have been Armenianized over time, but they were not Armenian in their origin, very much like "trashvel". The two cases are entirely different. quote:This is speaking purely from a linguistic/philological point of view by the way. If it is true however, that it were the proto-Armenians who invented PIE, then I will agree with you that the origins of kov and katoo are Armenian. But until then, like you, I will unfortunately have to resume quoting other people's works.Do as you wish. I can only urge you to quote other people's work only after filtering through logic and consistency-check. You'll be amazed how much empty wishful thinking, story-telling, and plain bias there is in such subjects. In any case, if you find evidence that proto-Armenians were not among the original PIE speakers, please do let us know. It would be an interesting breakthrough. I don't have much emotional attachment to IE or PIE; so there is no risk of upsetting me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJ Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 It seems like MJ has no retreat from this forum.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THOTH Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 TB - OK fine - a misperception on my part - I can buy that - so I am wrong...no problem. Nairi - don't give up - and don't think that you are not smart or such or that you don't know anything - even if you may go down the wrong path at times. This is called learning - as long as you keep your mind open. TB, MJ, Boghos, (even Hagarag!) and other's here know a lot about a lot of (very diverse and relevant) things and we should be thankful that they participate on these boards and take time with us lesser types (LOL). Don't let (your [?] and) my misperception of their (at times) seemingly snotty attitudes disuade you! (doesn't make me pause even for a minute! After all I accept [the reality of] my misperceptions [take this any/every way you see fit]) MJ - I will be glad to go back and edit my posts (including this one) to take any reference of/to you out - if it would make you feel better...or conversly I can promiss to mention you every once in a while to ensure that you are not forgotton...if it will make you feel better... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJ Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 Thoth, Your insecurity is yielding pathetic results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Fadi Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 Nairi, this is not exactly how things work. You should view Armenians as a branch of the tree of "Indo-Europeanism" rather than a people that acquired indo-Europeanism from elsewhere. What I mean is that the Armenian language is one type of the many different indo-European languages, like I said, indo-European is like the tree, and if you go back far in time enough far, you will find out that a form of communication dialects existed(proto-Indo-European) that finaly modified and separated to other branches, that later became, Armenian, greek, Persian etc... it is only recently in history that languiests separated Armenian and have put them as a distinct languages, many believed in the past that Armenian is a form of Persian. Other thing remain, is that there is many aspect in the Armenian language that are dinstinct and are not present in any other indo-European languages, that may also explain influences far in time with other people, where the mixtures of all those dialects has given what was Armenian... and the way languages are classed, is based on the domination of the family, the family languages that dominate Armenian, is Indo-European. So Armenians did not really acquired indo-European from others, but more exactly the Armenian language was just one product among many other languages, of the evolution of languages. Its like the quote. "Humans are not the product of evolution of the apes, but rather, apes and humans are the product of evolution of a common ancestor"(sorry for my English, but I think you understand what I mean by this) To finish, Armenians were part of this evolution, they have created new structures etc... and finaly thats why Armenian is a so rich language. [ November 05, 2002, 12:15 PM: Message edited by: Domino ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THOTH Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 I am not a linguist or familiar with this issue in any informed way. However it seems to me that Indo-European is more of a category of languages with related origins and not a language in itself(like Latin) from which other languages have sprung. With this being the case don't we just view Armenian as Indo-European? This is do to some commonalities of words (and perhaps structure) - no? But this does not necessarily prohibit language unique words or words diffused from other cultures possessing non Indo-European language. Not sure of this concept of pre-dated words - ie words existing prior to adoption of common forms from other Indo-European tongues. Does this change anything? Ignore this if I am just way off the mark here. Otherwise, your welcome - if this was of any help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twilight Bark Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Originally posted by nairi:But what definitions are you disciplined with that many others who have studied this field forever are not?It was not self-glorification. It was a statement of prerequisite for making sense. I hope everyone that studies the field forever has disciplined thinking, although I would not bet on it. As for you, I hope you are working on it, rather than rely on somebody else's "discipline" too much. quote:... but as you said yourself, Indo-European has been acquired by Armenians. I did? Perhaps before making an attempt at disciplined thinking, you should start smaller and try to read with more "discipline". quote:Armenians did not invent Indo-European. It is not binary. Lacking the exclusive copyright to Proto-IndoEuropean does not at all mean that they had to borrow it from somewhere. Whom did we borrow Earth from? Martians? I am beginning to suspect that you actually buy the old German crap about them being the true Aryans, and by logical extension, those that don't look like them being "borrowers" or "mongrels". If you are at all influenced by such nonsense, I advise you to exercise your analytical thinking abilities as well as your apparent thirst for encyclopaedic knowledge (which is wonderful, but insufficient). quote:My point is: if after centuries, "trashvel" is still considered a foreign borrowing, then so should Indo-European words. It is irrelevant whether the first recorded Armenians spoke Indo-European or not. What is relevant however, is that Indo-European was never originally Armenian. The only truly native Armenian words are those we can trace back without doubt as purely Armenian inventions. Everything else is either a foreign borrowing or a speculation. This includes the family we chose to belong to.Almost entirely off the mark. Whatever traces of truth that still lingers in those sentences could probably be explained as random occurrences. On second thought, sireli Nairi, perhaps you should take a short break from "thinking". Best,Twilight Bark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nairi Posted November 6, 2002 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Twilight Bark:Really? You were there? Is there evidence showing that "proto-Armenians" (whatever that might mean, if anything) were not among the original PIE speakers?Were you there? Can YOU prove that Armenians were among the first to speak PIE? Like I said, if you can, then I am willing to agree with you that PIE/IE lexicon and syntax is purely Armenian. quote:Completely wrong. All IE languages "broke away" from the "standard". That is, they evolved. They diverged because of being isolated from one another. There is nothing special about Germanic languages in terms of having higher fidelity to the original "standard" (which was probably quite fuzzy to begin with).I didn't mean to say that Germans are better than Armenians or v.v. In fact, most linguists are more interested in Armenian than they are in German, simply because it took such a different path from all the other PIE/IE languages. That's what I meant by "breaking away from the standard". This automatically means that there are plenty of other words and grammatical structures in Armenian that are uniquely Armenian and in no way related to IE or any other language. If you have trouble understanding what I wrote, please don't hesitate to ask. quote:The two cases are entirely different.Not if Armenians borrowed PIE. quote:Do as you wish. I can only urge you to quote other people's work only after filtering through logic and consistency-check. You'll be amazed how much empty wishful thinking, story-telling, and plain bias there is in such subjects.Yes, and it is so in EVERY subject as far as I'm concerned. Thoth jan, if it is true that I can learn something from other people, then it should also be true that other people could learn something from me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJ Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Twilight Bark: quote:I was not being mean. I was, and am still, irritated by a refusal to be receptive. I have near-infinite patience with people as long as I perceive them to be with good will. If I sense that my counterpart is motivated by "scoring points" of any sort rather than having an honest exchange of ideas, my patience evaporates, as it should.[/qb]I would add intellectual and behavioral dishonesty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Accelerated Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Thoth, Your insecurity is yielding pathetic results. quote:I would add intellectual and behavioral dishonesty. Careful now Martin, you know Titanium too has a point of breaking, and I feel your perillously close to it........LMAO! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJ Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Accelerated: quote:Thoth, Your insecurity is yielding pathetic results. quote:I would add intellectual and behavioral dishonesty. Careful now Martin, you know Titanium too has a point of breaking, and I feel your perillously close to it........LMAO!Like I have said once - this forum is like a pool. You shake it a little bit and all the balls fall into the right holes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Accelerated Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Like I have said once - this forum is like a pool. You shake it a little bit and all the balls fall into the right holes. Yeah....and unfortunatelly (for you), we dont have a hole big enough to fit your ball. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJ Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Accelerated: quote:Like I have said once - this forum is like a pool. You shake it a little bit and all the balls fall into the right holes. Yeah....and unfortunatelly (for you), we dont have a hole big enough to fit your ball.I am having hard time to figure out whether you are to be called Jugeneruts or Degeneruts. Either one would characterize you properly. In either case, you can rent an "ass.hole" from me to the moderators of this forum to reciprocate the favor. Got to go to work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Accelerated Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Got to go to work.Work eh? At 4:30AM? What you doing? Prostitution? Well I certainly hope you dont hold up your clientel. Dont work yourself too hard.......CAO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THOTH Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Originally posted by MJ:Thoth, Your insecurity is yielding pathetic results.au contraire... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sip Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 Before some of the posts in this thread get deleted, I just wanted to jump in the fun and say how much I have enjoyed all this "PIE" talk The cool thing is that at least I am learning a whole bunch of stuff from this thread. I'd never even heard the term IE used without the "Microsoft" prefix (except for the bickering parts ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nairi Posted November 6, 2002 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Twilight Bark:I don't need to. We are considering an ethnos that always spoke an indoeuropean language to the best of our knowledge, the big Urartuan infusion notwithstanding (but Hayasa predates Urartu, making Urartuan component an "assimilated" one, rather than the "nucleus" of the ethnos). The present language is IE, the linguistic environment in which the "Hay" nation originated was IE. As I said too many times, with no apparent registration on your side, it is meaningless to talk about who adopted what concerning times when an Armenian nation did not exist. I do not understand why you fail to understand a simple concept like that. You are dragging the discussion into an anthropological one, which is not fruitful. We can be fairly certain that the anthropological composition of today's Armenians is significantly different from the nuclear group that first crystallized as the people of Hayasa, not the least because of the later Urartuan component. By such an anthropological definition of "Armenian", there are very few native words in Armenian, because the "other" ancestors probably outnumber those from the original Hayasa-Azzi province. That definition, although somewhat silly, is fine with me, as long as we all know what we are talking about. As an aside, by the same definition, the Turkish spoken in Turkey has very few "native" words, because they are anthropologically almost entirely Anatolian/Near Eastern/Mediterranean, and whose ancestors did not "invent" Turkish. Compared with their case, Armenians have a lot sounder claim to define IE words as native, even with the silly definition we are considering right now.This your speculation. I have mine. I think we shared them enough. Let's leave it at that, shall we? quote:In any case, whether those languages have more or less non-IE words than Armenian has nothing to do with whether IE words in Armenian are "native" or not.Agreed. quote:It had a "linguistically rich" environment, and it reflects that. But I don't know if I would be so ethnocentric and claim that Armenian is so much more special than all the other IE languages, although it would be nice if that were the case.Did I use the words "much more special"? quote:All IE languages have their "unique" characteristics that set them apart from other IE languages. But that has no bearing on whether IE words in Armenian should be defined as "native" or not.Agreed again. quote:What I have trouble with is why you chose to be so patronizing with so little understanding. But you'll grow out of it I am sure.And I certainly hope you'll grow out of assuming one day. quote:Armenians did not "borrow" PIE, and they did not borrow IE. That is becasue they did not "borrow" the Armenian they spoke at the time of Hayasa. They happened to be speaking whatever they were speaking at the time when the formation of a group called Hayasa-Azzi was precipitated by the political environment. There is no single group that can claim that their ancestors alone were the "inventors" of indoeuropean. It was most likely a lingua-franca used by a variety of ethnic groups, probably all around the perimeter of the Black Sea, when it was a lake, before it got flooded via the Bosporus strait. Such an origin would also explain why there is no credible evidence for the "arrival" of the Armenians or even the Hittites into Anatolia (from east or west anyway).See my answer to your first comment. Nairi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Fadi Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 Dear Nairi, I think your approch is a little disconnected and a little irrational, because you are excluding the Armenians from the rest, and applying your logic then, thats the main problem of your demarche, I think you should view those people, including the Armenians as a part of a process of evolution, rather then, who barrowed from who. But still, I think that TB non-friendly approch in explaining you, has not helped a lot.(specifically because of the unfriendly approch and not the explaination itself). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nairi Posted November 6, 2002 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Domino:I think your approch is a little disconnected and a little irrational, because you are excluding the Armenians from the rest, Domino jan, I'm doing the exact opposite. By INCLUDING Armenian as merely another language based on IE, I am treating Armenian the way I would treat any other language. quote:But still, I think that TB non-friendly approch in explaining you, has not helped a lot.(specifically because of the unfriendly approch and not the explaination itself).Actually, what hasn't helped me, is TB's elementary level of teaching. If he has anything more advanced, I will be all ears. Trust me. [ November 06, 2002, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: nairi ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twilight Bark Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Originally posted by nairi:This your speculation. I have mine. I think we shared them enough. Let's leave it at that, shall we?My whole point was the avoidance of speculation. In order to put the ancestors of a perennially indoeuropean-speaking group into a non-indoeuropean environment, you need to speculate. I, on the other hand, don't need to speculate anything, as I am not the one proposing an unproven break in the fundamental character of the Armenian language, or the language of those that later formed the nucleus of the Armenian nation. The onus is on you. quote:Did I use the words "much more special"? Nit-picking on the specific words is justified only when they make a crucial difference to the underlying meaning, or when they are particularly amusing or interesting. The quote above fails both tests. quote:And I certainly hope you'll grow out of assuming one day.Not only was this not an appropriate answer to my hopes, but it also exposes another misconception on your part. We all have to live by making assumptions. (For example, I assumed that you didn't need anybody else's protection in order to participate in a debate, regardless of the merits of your positions. Thoth assumed otherwise. ) Try going through even a small fraction of your life without making assumptions, and you'll see what I mean. However, we can always work on improving the accuracy of our assumptions, and some of us have to work harder than others. Let's leave it at that. quote:See my answer to your first comment.That is an answer that is devoid of content. To demonstrate to Thoth that I can be patient even when I think it is not warranted, let me conclude with an example. If a rock has been sitting here today, and it has been reported to be there 3500 years ago, and there is no evidence that it was moved there from somewhere else, the most reasonable working assumption would be that it has "always" (i.e. since the "creation" of the place) been there, and not moved there from some place else. The two alternatives are not of equal weight or probability. No hard feelings, and take care. TB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twilight Bark Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Domino:I think that TB non-friendly approch in explaining you, has not helped a lot.(specifically because of the unfriendly approch and not the explaination itself).Dear Domino,You are a technically literate person, so you'll appreciate this. Suppose you are solving a nonlinear equation by an iteration method called Friendly Iteration (FI). And after a few iterations your algorithm FI is coming back with the exact same number that you started with. You may reasonably decide that your FI approach has failed, and that perhaps a different approach is warranted. Or, depending on how much time you have available, you may simply utter something "unfriendly" about the problem and walk away. My walking away from the "stuck iteration" problem was disapproved by Thoth. Since he is a nice guy, I gave it another go. I am not sure I achieved "convergence" yet, but I surely depleted my emergency supply of patience. And what is this hooplah about "friendly" and "unfriendly"? The most drastic thing I told Nairi was to take a brief break from "thinking", implying that I didn't think she was thinking straight. Gosh, what a horrendous thing to say! Poor, little, fragile Nairi; she can't take such gross abuse. Come on, what you and Thoth are doing is much more insulting to Nairi than anything I have said so far. Are you going to treat her as a peer or not? Let it go. And re-evaluate. TB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twilight Bark Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 quote:Originally posted by nairi:Actually, what hasn't helped me, is TB's elementary level of teaching. As they say, I cannot learn it for you. You have to help yourself. You may yet do that some day. quote:If he has anything more advanced, Dear, dear. One little step at a time. Let's first get the logic part down. quote:I will be all ears.And hopefully you won't neglect to use what's between those ears properly . I am confident you can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.