A COUPLE OF QUICKIES.

1) Recordings of various “lost dialects” of Irish, made around 1930 (scroll down). Thanks, Trevor!
2) Dnghu.org, “Indo-European: European Union’s National Language.” Complete with Amazon link for A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, Third Edition. Crackpottery, but my kind of crackpottery! (N.b.: *dnghu- is the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root for ‘tongue.’)

Comments

  1. i guess the first two editions must have sold out!

  2. The “first two editions” actually refers to two hypothetical books reconstructed by examining geographic distribution of traits observed in the third edition.

  3. And here’s a bit of text to look at:
    Dhghomōn enis sūnuwe eiket, joqe jowísteros patréi weuqét: Pater, rijós dasdhí moi aitim qāi meghei áineti, joqe rēim ibhom widhét.
    Enim nē péluwāns dināns pos, solwā garlós, jowísteros sūnús reu porsótenom oigheto londhom, idheiqe rēim nudét sewe ghlóidotos ceiwents. Enim ítāpo solwā cósissēt kom, dhṛghtós molét ghrēdhus londhei ólnosmei, joqe egētum sepe bhwije. Itaqe cālós, qismei jugeto kéiwijom ólnosjo londhī, imqe sontḗjet porkons pāsksi. Atqe úderom skḷiqāis plḗnātum gheríjeto porkōs edent jans atqe neqis ismei dōt.
    Swei poti wṛtomnós, ēgt: qotjoi patrós domei mísdhotes paskneis spréigonti, kei egṓ au dhami mṛijar! ṛísomnos paterṃ eisō mene ad, joqe ismei seksō: Pater, kémelom proti tewomqe antí memlar, jāmi nē deknos egṓ, sūnús téwijos kluwētum: dhasdhi me swāi qimqim mísdhotom tewe. and I am no Ita ṛitós paterṃ ludhét sewe. Eti jom qeli bhūl , em patḗr tósjope dṛket, joqe ana kṛsents kómqēilj krūtós esti enim kolsom petlós em bhusājét.
    Wedét óisosm i sūnús: Pater, kémelom proti tewomqe anti memlar: jāmi nē deknos egṓ, sūnús téwijos nōmnādhjom.
    Nū mísdhatbhos bhato patḗr sewe; bhéresi: prāmām dhrághete togām joqe tom westíjete, anom tosjo ghéseni kérpjonsqe esjo daste pedsú: kom piwónṃqe bhérete loigom joqe chénete, joqe edāmos, joqe wḷdām terpāmos, jodqid kei sūnús mene dhedhuwós ēst atqe coje ati: skombnós ēst, atqe wṛētar. Enim wḷdām bhwijónt.
    Agrei au senísteros ēst sūnús: joqe jom cēmsēt enim domom nedisēt, kómkantum léigṃqe kluwét. Joqe neqom móghuwom ghaulós pṛket qid ghāi-ke bhousēnt. Isqe sqet: bhrātēr tewe cēme enim piwonṃ patḗr two chone loigom, jodqid tom cīwóm solwom ghōde.
    Kṛditós autim esti, joqe nē en eitum welwāt. Ar patḗr ejos eksodlós, bhwijét im chestum. Atqe se protiweqents, patréi bhato sewe: edke totjons atnons sístāmi twei upo, joqe neqom dikām tewe kleusō dus, atqe neqom meghei ghaidom desta wḷdāi ameikos senutéwijāi. Mō ita tom sūnús tewe kei, rēim loutsāis cṛālós cēme, ólnosmōi píwonṃ loigom chonta.
    Atqe oise tosm i weuqét: suneu, tū áiwesi mojo esi, enim solwā menjā téwijā senti. Wḷd m autim terptum, joqe gaudhētum opos est, jodqid bhrātēr tewe kei dhedhuwós ēst atqe coje ati; skombnós ēst, atqe wṛētar.

  4. Y ddraig werdd says

    “A Grammar of Modern Indo-European” is available for free on Google Books. I found it by chance last year. Very serious sounding book, with 100s of pages of tables,maps and references. If stumble upon it you could think it’s something serious. But the hole thing is actually just two people.
    P.S. I think that there really are more editions of the book, or at least with 2 different covers.

  5. “Indo-European: European Union’s National Language.”
    Cool that they forgot about Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian, just to name the fully official languages (and 3/27 of the member states) of the Union, let alone Basque.

  6. Don’t forget Maltese.

  7. So, is Modern IE centum or satem? I couldn’t tell for sure from the numbers in http://dnghu.org/indo-european-language/node/11.

  8. The “first two editions” actually refers to two hypothetical books reconstructed by examining geographic distribution of traits observed in the third edition.

    You owe me a keyboard.

  9. Trond Engen says

    It’s traditionally kentum, but young people, mainly in the east, pronounce the palatal with a fricative rather than a stop. If this is allowed to continue, it’s no way to say where it’ll end. Some fear they won’t be able to talk to eachother in few millennia.

  10. Trond: Yah, so you say, old man, but the fact is, we are the satem hard core!
    Turkish is official in Cyprus alongside Greek, so add them to the list of pissed-off countries. Not to mention Turkey itself, if it ever completes the process.
    But the best thing about Modern IE is that G___ G_____ has already denounced it as fascist.

  11. komfo,amonan says

    IIRC GG & CQ have been at odds for >3 years. I’ve found a link, but I hesitate to include it, for fear of drawing them hither. A search on the two names should suffice for those interested.
    I confess to being very fond of the Modern IE idea, unworkable as it is.

  12. Trond Engen says

    Right, I’ve heard that there are some off in the eastern boondocks who don’t use the fricative.
    I too love the modern IE idea, both as an elaborate running joke and as a potential live experiment with a PIE-like language. But frankly I found that frontpage somewhat off-putting with, well, IE chauvinism. And don’t take that as support for the double G.
    Not that IE chauvinists would be allowed to rule a MIE Europe. The language would coexist peacefully with Modern Uralic, Modern Semitic, Modern Common Turkic and Modern Common Basque. The depths of reconstruction are quite different, though, and the reconstructed semantic cores quite different, so it remains to see what the speakers will have to say to eachother.

  13. If there’s anyone GG is not at odds with, they must be sycophantic indeed (which a check of the few recent comments tends to confirm). He has managed to alienate even John Wells, that mildest and most tolerant of language bloggers.

  14. David Marjanović says

    Oh yeah, Glen Gordon. Very bright fellow, with loads of great ideas on his blog, but – alas! – simply way too aggressive to be able to talk to anyone or to get anything (non-self-)published. A pity. A major pity.
    let alone Basque
    And never forget that Basque is the one that is actually abbreviated .eu on teh intarwebz. Mwa ha ha ha haaaaah.

  15. Well, it’s “eu” as a language tag, but not as a country code/domain name, which is the meaning that .eu suggests. That would be the EU.

  16. This Modern Indo-European thing seems totally wacky to me. I’d heard of dnghu.org before, but I had no idea that they were still running and expanding the project…
    I mean, we can’t even agree on so many fundamental issues in IE, let alone trying to work out the issues arising the question of time-depth and the `flatness’ of reconstruction in trying to figure out what the linguistic reality was at any given point of time (PIE at 4000 BCE? 3000 BCE? 2000 BCE?), so seeing someone try to conlang a spoken version of the reconstructed language seems to me just so bizarre.

  17. “Oh yeah, Glen Gordon. Very bright fellow, with loads of great ideas on his blog, but – alas! – simply way too aggressive to be able to talk to anyone or to get anything (non-self-)published. A pity. A major pity.”
    Ditto. I used to visit regularly. One time he banned somemone for being a “solipsist”. I thouhgt that was about the best reason going to ban someone – ban a person because there’s really no tlaking to them. Cool.
    Then one day he posted an article linking the werewolf myths to an Etruscan word based on some connection to graveyards. he thought death was the semantic link. Another commenter and I argued that it seemed strange that either Latin or Etruscan would have much influence on what was bascially Northern or Central European folklore, especially when the thrust of that lore was shape-shifting,not death anyway. We three argued back and forth and eventually it became obvious the other commenter and I were right. He removed the whole post! It became a non-post.

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