"The arbitrary and unrigorous methods that have characterized much of this linguistic paleontology certainly deserve Renfrew's scepticism. . . . Most of the lexemes that can be confidently assigned on the basis of widespread attestation . . . do not tell us much."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Coleman (1988) (450). in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paleolinguistics
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Paleolinguistics
13 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Paleolinguistics →
Related Quotes
"The extent to which one can accept or deny the premises of ‘archaeo-linguistics’ depends on the extent of one’s faith…"
"All prehistoric reconstruction is of course purely hypothetical, that is, based on conjectural assumptions. Strictly …"
"The apparent existence of a common term in the language, which is attained through reconstruction on the basis of the…"
"The linguist J. Fraser (1926),for example, presented a well-known (but faulty) caricature of the whole enterprise by …"
"Now the more sophisticated among us could easily object here that it would take a great deal of naivete on the part o…"
"The English language has laid under contribution almost every language on the face of the earth. We speak freely of t…"
"The determination of the Indo-European civilization is precisely the point which affords least hope of any satisfacto…"
"It is an elementary mistake to equate common Indo-European words with Proto-Indo-European words and to base thereon c…"
"The clues afforded by linguistic paleontology were either so general that they accommodated both centres without much…"
"Most recently, Krell (1998) argued that "the old, pliable crutch of linguistic paleontology should certainly be aband…"