Posted by Gustavo S. Pereira on 18:30 9/19/01
In reply to: Non-Proto-Western classical words posted by Gustavo S. Pereira on 20:10 9/18/01
So, it means that the origin of non-PIE words in Latin, for example, is an unknown issue? Other question: what did you do in Cadhinor and Cuêzi? You invented that words randomly, or what's the reason you "created" for that issue (if there's any, of course).
Cheers,
Gustavo Pereira
IE languages have varying amounts of non-IE material... Germanic is particularly high, if I remember correctly-- a third of the vocabulary is of unknown origin. It's usually supposed that this was borrowed from some non-IE European population whose language has otherwise disappeared.
I did try to create a naturalistic language family with Eastern: not all Verdurian words go back to Cadhinor; not all Cadhinor words go back to PE. In the first case I almost always worked out an alternative (borrowing; internal derivation; imitative words), though there remain a few mysteries. For the ancient languages I wasn't so demanding, figuring that gaps in our knowledge would be characteristic of such old languages. (Remember that IE is an exception in the world, due to the age of its earliest attestations. The history of many language families is shrouded in mysteries.)
These days I try not to invent any Cadhinor or Verdurian word from scratch-- I'd much rather borrow or invent the word from existing resources. Of course, I may well invent words in Wede:i or Methaiun to do this!