Info on Starostin's Website and Update, Great Language Sites
Jarel
several years and I noticed he has added a new Khoisan etymologies. There are
some hard to find languages in there. Can anyone vouch for the quality of his
Altaic etymologies? There are some great linguistic sites out there. I found
one on the many Chinese languages:
This one is amazing. I found another great site where one can look through
older publications of Native American Languages:
http://www.canadiana.org/eco/index.html
Anyway, I added my URL after my name. It takes so much time to make a
website. Here is my first attempt.
Jarel
www.geocities.com/jjkugadedeaton/index.html
Larry Trask
> Sergei Starostin's website (http://starling.rinet.ru/) has been up for
> several years and I noticed he has added a new Khoisan etymologies. There are
> some hard to find languages in there. Can anyone vouch for the quality of his
> Altaic etymologies?
I wouldn't trust a single word Starostin says.
I've had plenty of experience with Starostin's way of doing
linguistics. He has enthusiastically embraced Bengtson and Ruhlen's
Basque comparative idiocies. He refuses to hear a word of criticism
against them. He refuses to accept the transparent Romance origin of
some of the Basque words used by B&R as comparanda. He refuses to
accept our massive and meticulous reconstruction of Pre-Basque
phonology, because it's not consistent with B&R's comparisons. He
doesn't even believe me when I tell him that Basque forms diminutives
by palatalization -- a statement about as controversial as saying that
English forms plurals in <-s>.
In discussions with him, I have found his arguments to be uniformly
ignorant, confused and irrelevant, and at times downright dumb.
Sergei's hobby is reconstruction. Every year or so, he picks a new
language family, or putative family, and "reconstructs" it. I know of
nobody who takes any of his "reconstructions" seriously.
Larry Trask
lar...@sussex.ac.uk
Jarel
>I wouldn't trust a single word Starostin says.
I guess it is only a matter of time before he connects all of his
etymologies.
>In discussions with him, I have found his arguments to be uniformly ignorant,
confused and irrelevant, and at times downright dumb.
One would think that with the time it takes to create a large website, the
creator would take his work seriously and would want to create something that
is well formed.
Since Ruhlen is a near total quack, what do you think of Edo Nyland? LOL
Jarel
www.geocities.com/jjkugadedeaton/index.html
Larry Trask
> Larry said:
>
> >I wouldn't trust a single word Starostin says.
>
> I guess it is only a matter of time before he connects all of his
> etymologies.
Quite posibly. Starostin is plainly more interested in finding
"connections" than in doing linguistics.
> >In discussions with him, I have found his arguments to be uniformly ignorant,
> confused and irrelevant, and at times downright dumb.
>
> One would think that with the time it takes to create a large website, the
> creator would take his work seriously and would want to create something that
> is well formed.
I don't think Sergei can tell the difference between serious
linguistics and crank work.
> Since Ruhlen is a near total quack, what do you think of Edo Nyland? LOL
Nyland is the crackpot's crackpot. He has lowered Basque linguistic
loopiness to new depths never before contemplated by anyone.
Larry Trask
lar...@sussex.ac.uk
Jarel
>Nyland is the crackpot's crackpot. He has lowered Basque linguistic loopiness
to new depths never before contemplated by anyone.
I guess since he can never be the greatest linguist of Basque, he has strived
to be the worst.
Jarel
www.geocities.com/jjkugadedeaton/index.html