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  Quote RSVT92 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Language Isolates
    Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 18:28
Language Isolates is always an interesting subject in the field of Linguistics. Off the top of my head there is Basque and allegedly Korean. How do these form and what are some more of these "Isolate" Languages? 
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 18:36

They don't form as isolates. Their related siblings die out.

Actually on reflection I suppose they could form as isolates, if the population was cut off from the rest of the world long enough.

 

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  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 18:46
Originally posted by RSVT92

what are some more of these "Isolate" Languages? 
Some linguists consider Japanese to be an isolate language as well.  Ainu (spoken in Northern Japan and almost extinct) is also an isolate. 
 
There are a few languages like Armenian that might be considered to be "almost" isolates (Indo European super family, but of uncertain origin and no close relatives). If Japanese is not a true isolate, it can be considered a very near isolate.
 


Edited by Cryptic - 18-Jun-2008 at 19:27
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 19:15
Hungarian. Or whatever the term is? I have heard it is not related to anyother Euro language.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 19:19
Basque, in Spain, is another isolate language, which is not Indoeuropean. Some people believe is the related to the "native" language of ancient Iberians.

Edited by pinguin - 18-Jun-2008 at 19:20
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  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 19:23
Originally posted by Sparten

Hungarian. Or whatever the term is? I have heard it is not related to anyother Euro language.
Hungarian (Magyar) is Finno Ugaric and is related to Finnish, Estonian and Balkhir.  It is a relative isolate though (surrounded by Slavic languages, and is pretty distant linguistically from from Finnish)


Edited by Cryptic - 18-Jun-2008 at 19:26
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 20:51
In the same way Magyar is a relative isolate, so is Rumanian (bar the odd dialect or two to the south-west in Istria). They weren't formed as isolates however, it's just that either they settled among foreign populations, or other peoples eventually surrounded them.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 21:10
In any case whether a language is a language isolate is very relative; as gcle pointed out it is usually just a languages whose family members died out. Looking at it that way, Basque is no more a language isolate than the entire Indo-European family taken together.
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  Quote Sarmat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 21:34
It's not relative.
 
Isolate languages are simply the languages that do not fit in any known linguistic group, family, subdivision etc.
 
We can put Hungarian in Finno-Ugrian group and there are enough obvious genetic similarities between Hungarain and other Finno-Ugrian languages which will allow us to do so, although other Finno-Ugrian languages speakers might be hundred of miles from Hungarian speakers.
 
However, Basque language is unique. We can't put him in any known linguistic subdivision. It's alone of it's kind, there are no other genetically similar languages. That's why it's isolate; it doesn't fit in any known group. Although geographically it might be surrounded my the speakers of othe Indoeuropean languages,  geographical isolation doesn't make it isolate per se.
 
By contrast a unique position and lack of the relation to any other known linguistic groups (regardless of their georaphical location)makes it isolate.
 
Another good example of "solation" in geographical and liguistic sense is Malgash language. Spoken in Madagaskar, and geographically located in Africa, it lacks any genetic relation to other geographically close languges spoken in African continent.

However, Malgash isn't isolate at all in linguistic sense. It belongs to the Malay subgroup of Austronesian language family and it has enough close lingustic "relatives" in the island of Borneo and it doesn't matter that there are hundreds of miles across the Indian Ocean between Magash and other Malay languages.
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 22:01

I'd agree that one identifies an 'isolate' because it affiliates to no known group. However the question was how do they form.

Malgash would be an example of a perfect isolate if the languages died out back in the east Indies. Basque is an isolate almost certainly because the other labguages that previously were similar to it have died out.

It's possible, but seems highly unlikely that a language could, all on its own, develop to such an extent that it no longer bore any relation to the languages it was originally related to (and therefore no other). It would incidentally also have to do that withut splitting into dialects and then sibling languages itself.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jun-2008 at 22:31
Originally posted by Sarmat12

It's not relative.

It is. A single language isolate or an entire language family isolate is not really that much different.

To get back to the Basque example, it has been established that Basque had a related language, Aquitanian, spoken in Southwestern France, that went extinct in the Middle Ages. It means Basque has a relative, and we can even rank Basque and Aquitanian in a 'Vasconic' language family. So in an absolute sense Basque is not a language isolate. Nonetheless the origins and possible relationship with other families of the Basque language are still as unclear as they would have been if we would not have known about the existance of Aquitanian.


Edited by Mixcoatl - 18-Jun-2008 at 22:33
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  Quote Sarmat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jun-2008 at 01:28
Well if there are at least two related languages there is no "language isolate" phenomenon. It's called a micro language family aka Japanese and Okinawan.
 
It could be a vast area for speculations depending on the context which could be very politicized.
 
Let's take Japanese and Okinawan  there are 3 possible options i.e.
 
1. There are 2 languages isolates i.e. Japanese and Okinawan
2. There is one language isolate Japanese and Okinawan is a dialect of Japanese
3. There is a micro Japonic language family consisted of two languages i.e. Japanese and Okinawan (note that here there are no languages isolate already, but a micro language family).
 
So, Aquitanian is generally referred as a "dialect of Basque."
 
If it's established that Aquitanian is a totally separate language, I don't think we'll be able to call Basque "isolate" any more. It'll be a part of a sort of "Basque-Aquitanian" language family.
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  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jun-2008 at 01:31
Maybe there should be two terms...
Linguistic Isolate: No relation to any living languages, even when considering vast groups like"Indo European"  (Basque, Korean, Ainu, and possibly Japanese)
Geographic Isolate: (Hungarian, Navajo, Romanian, and the very geographicaly isolated Malgash)
 
 
 
 
 
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  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jun-2008 at 01:36
Originally posted by Sarmat12

3. There is a micro Japonic language family consisted of two languages i.e. Japanese and Okinawan (note that here there are no languages isolate already, but a micro language family).
Lets say this is true. There is still the mystery of how the very small and lingusitically isolated Japonic micro family developed.  (See Mixcoatl's comment regarding the Basque isolate micro family). Lithuanian and Latvian, at least, can be classified as the Baltic subdivision of the Indo European super family.  
Originally posted by Sarmat12

 
If it's established that Aquitanian is a totally separate language, I don't think we'll be able to call Basque "isolate" any more. It'll be a part of a sort of "Basque-Aquitanian" language family.
Which is in turn an isolated micro family. (Mixcoatl) Speaking of Basque... Any possibility that Etruscan was a pre Indo European language like Basque apparently is? 


Edited by Cryptic - 19-Jun-2008 at 02:38
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jun-2008 at 13:24
There's some confusion here between calling a language an 'isolate' because it has no living relative, and calling it an 'isolate' because it never had any historical relatives either.
 
I don't think any language is an absolute isolate in the second sense: it's just that we no longer have any evidence of what its relatives were.
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  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jun-2008 at 16:11
^
I agree, no language is truly isolate in the second sense. I guess that second sense isolation could be possible in theory (vast period of total isolation), but not in actuality.
 
Japanese probably has extinct Taiwanese indigenousl relatives or extinct Siberian relatives.
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  Quote Sarmat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jun-2008 at 20:03
As long as language has any known relative including extinct relatives it can't be considered isolate.
 
For example, Ket language has no any living relatives. Another close relative of it, Yugh language just became extinct recently. Unhappy  However, Ket language is not considered isolate and it is assign to Yenissean languages family despite the fact that all the other languages of this family don't exist
 
So, I assume the discussion is about the languages which doesn't have any know relative regardless whether they are instinct or not.
 
Concerning Japanese there is a worse study hypo about it's close relation to Kogure language. If it's proved to be true, Japanese won't be isolate any more, but so far it's just a theory.
 
Japanese doesn't have relatives in Taiwan. Taiwanese indigenous language are studied quite well and they belong to Austonesian family, while Japane obviously has some genetic relation to Altaic macro family. Though Japanese seem to bear some Austonesic influences they are insignificant compare to "Altaic-style" features.
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  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Jun-2008 at 01:01
Originally posted by Sarmat12

As long as language has any known relative including extinct relatives it can't be considered isolate.
So by that definition, Korean appears to be only existing isolate language.  Japanese could be a canidate, but as the other poster mentioned, this depends on whether Okinawan is classified as a seperate language or as a Japanese dialect. Basque wont fit it either because it appears to have an extinct relative. 
 
Ethnologue classifies Okinawan as a seperate "language" but adds that Okinwan is 60-70% compatible with the Japanese spoken in Tokyo.  A  book on the battle of Okinawa that I read mentioned that in 1945, the "Okinawan" spoken by older Islanders was not understandable by Japanese soldiers.
 
"Okinawan" was probably a seperate language prior to 1945 but has since become a distinct dialect of Japanese. Would this make Japanese an isolate language by your definition? 
 


Edited by Cryptic - 20-Jun-2008 at 01:13
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  Quote Sarmat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Jun-2008 at 02:31
It's not my definition. It's a generally accepted linguistic definition of "isolate language."
 
You got the point correctly. As long as Okinawan considered a dialect of Japanese and can't be distinguished as a separate language, Japanese doesn't have "equal" relatives and thus it's isolate. - This is the mainstream conclusion of the Linguists at the time.
 
However, if it's established that Okinawan is in fact an independent language, then Japanese won't be isolate and they will form a Japonic language family together-this is the minority view now.
 
The same thing is with Basque, generally Aquitanian is regarded as a dialect of Basque. So as long as it's the case, Basque is a "language isolate."
 
But it's true, all this stuff is very politically motivated. I actually think that the whole stuff of discussing the differences between languages, dialects, sub dialects etc. is worth a separate thread.
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  Quote Bernard Woolley Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Jun-2008 at 04:37

I'm not sure Japanese can really be considered a language isolate. My understanding of the debate about the origins of Japanese is that the language shares elements with several different language families, and it doesn't clearly fit into one or the other.

If one wanted to compare Basque to other languages, however, one wouldn't even know where to start. The possibility of an extinct Aquitanian sister language also doesn't make Basque any less enigmatic, because it does nothing to help explain where Basque came from.
 
History plays into this as well. The broad sweeps of Japanese history are more or less known, including the times when foreign influences were introduced to the island. Basque, however, seems to predate every other language group around it, so it's hard to say much of anything about the history of its development.
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