"The computer will be crucial to handle the etymological information explosion of the future, but machines will never be able to do all the work for us. There will still doubtless be room for gut feelings, intuitions, temperamental quirks, and professional rivalries, even in the Computer Age. In making etymological 'judgment calls' there will never be a substitute for hands-on human experience in a given language or language family."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
"On Megalocomparison" (1990) (p.119)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Matisoff
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
James Matisoff
16 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by James Matisoff →
Related Quotes
"The severe difficulties in attempting a rigorous reconstruction of Proto-Tibeto-Burman on this basis [of scant data] …"
"Bilingual humor may be viewed as a relatively benign response to the frustrations inherent in living in such a lingui…"
"In the Beginning was the Sino-Tibetan monosyllable, arrayed in its full consonantal and vocalic splendor. And the syl…"
"The long drought in Tibeto-Burman and Sino-Tibetan historical linguistics is over. The field is opening up now as nev…"
"Rhinoglottophilia–an affinity between the feature of nasality and the articulatory involvement of the glottis–is more…"
"Semantic shifting goes by many different names. In his pioneering article, Benedict 1939 calls it "semantic different…"
"...the more I learn about Lahu the less I think I know. It has seemed that the more fluently I came to speak the lang…"
"I suggest that the reconstruction of PTB [Proto-Tibeto-Burman] is a noble enterprise, where a spirit of competitive t…"
"There can be no more solemn duty for the comparative linguist than to reconstruct his language family's word for the …"
"I remember particularly a moment just before leaving for Japan and Thailand in 1976, when I was gazing forlornly at t…"