Talk:Languages of the Caucasus

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[edit] Redirected talk

(( Undid moves from Talk:Caucasian languages and Talk:Iberian-Caucasian languages )) [[attr. to User:Koryakov Yuri

[edit] Greenberg

From the article:

"South Caucasian and North Caucasian are two distinct, unrelated phyla even in Greenberg's classification."

Who is Greenburg? -- llywrch 03:38 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I've just come here to ask for a little disambiguation in the entry at the same point, and expansion of "even" Wetman 02:41, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

See Joseph H. Greenberg --Jerzy(t) 04:03, 2004 Mar 11 (UTC)

[edit] Ibero-Caucasian languages

Please do not use "Iberian-Caucasian languages" as the page title if it were an established language family. There is no evidence that the North and South Caucasian languages form a clade (i.e. had a common origin before they branched off from other families). Until then it is just one among many other theories. Also attaching the name "Iberian" (a name closely identified with Georgia) to the whole group is unacceptable bias. Finally the name is misleading and defintely non-standard.
Jorge Stolfi 03:18, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have rewritten the Iberian-Caucasian languages page to make it clear that the proposed grouping of North and South Caucasian families is still only a conjecture with no linguitic evidence; and that the name "Iberian" has problematic political connotations.
Jorge Stolfi 07:22, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
While the relationship between North and South Caucasian phyla is not widely accepted, or even certain, I think that saying there is "no evidence" is too strong. Some reconstructions of Proto-Kartvelian bear quite some resemblance to reconstructions of Proto-Northwest Caucasian. There is no proof; but saying there is no evidence is a different thing entirely. thefamouseccles 00:00, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

With all due respect, "Iberian-Caucasian languages" is not very good English. The appropriate form should be "Ibero-Caucasian languages" according to English word-formation rules. The article entitled "Iberian-Caucasian languages" should be renamed as (or moved to) "Ibero-Caucasian languages". The first reference in the article could read "The term Ibero-Caucasian (or Iberian-Caucasian)", but subsequent references in the same article should just read "Ibero-Caucasian". Furthermore, the reference to "Iberian-Caucasian languages" in the article "Languages of the Caucasus" should be changed to "Ibero-Caucasian languages". Also, I don't understand why there is so much strife over this term that the page has to be locked. The term refers only to a hypothetical grouping of languages, a "negative" grouping (i.e. based on the fact that its "member" languages are not members of any of the major language families around them), rather than a "positive" grouping. It is, in other words, simply a geographic notion. There is no substantive evidence supporting this grouping as a real language family, or superfamily, or even "phylum". Pasquale 19:52, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The locking was due to repeated vandalism by a single user. I fully agree with your remarks, except there are some scholars who chaim to see a genetic relation, and this opinion has to be recorded.
Jorge Stolfi 09:03, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] English zelkova = Russian дзельква = Georgian ძელქვა ?

I've been researching the English word zelkova which is said to derive from a Caucasian language. Dictionaries are very hard to find so could anybody here verfiy that I've tracked down the right word please? — Hippietrail 13:45, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Circassian and Cherkess

Circassian is a term which covers the languages of Adyghe and Kabardian, but also the term Circassian (or Cherkess/Cherkes) also refers to a dialect of Kabardian. So, I have changed the text to say "also the Cherkess dialect" because to say "Kabardian, also known as Cherkess" is confusing. It is best to leave Cherkess as the term for the one dialect of Kabardian. Imperial78

Cherkess is a Turkish name for all the non-Turkic northern Caucasian peoples, including the Ossetes. In the linguistic literature it is often used for the entire NWC family. Some people distinguish between Cherkess and its English form, Circassian, for these uses. kwami 11:14, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Languages of the Caucasus" and "Caucasian languages"

Recently (27 jan 2006) an article "Caucasian languages", containing only the North and South Caucasian families, was split off from "Languages of the Caucasus". I have reverted the split for the following reasons:

  1. A priori, the phrases "Languages of the Caucasus" and "Caucasian languages" have the same meaning in English. An attempt to give distinct meanings to those two phrases will only create confusion among readers and editors.
  2. Moreover, defining "Caucasian languages" to have that specialized sense is an arbitrary choice, not an established convention. To many people, including many linguists, "Caucasian languages" mean "any Languages spoken in the Caucasus", not just those two specific families. Now, Wikipedia should not impose specific definitions for words, it should only record their current usage.
  3. There is no good linguistic reason to put the North and South Caucasian families together while excluding the other languages that are spoken in the area. While these may be related to families that are spoken outside the Caucasus area, several of them (like Ossetian) are spoken only in that area, and have been so for millenia.
  4. On the other hand, there is nothing in common between North and South Caucasian except the accidental fact that they have both been called "XXX Caucasian". If people had called them "South Central European" and "North Anatolian" instead, no one would have ever thought of putting them together in the same sack. Creating a separate article for the two would only suggest a connection that does not exist.
  5. Finally, the articles on Caucasian language families and sub-families are too chopped up already. The last thing we need is more sub-articles.

As for "Iberian-Caucasian languages", IMHO that article should be only a section in "Caucasian languages", since that theory does not seem to have any substance, and may have been proposed only for political reasons. But last year someone kept trying to replace "Caucasian languages" by the contents of that page, as if that theory was Absolute Truth, so we had to make it into a separate article. All the best, Jorge Stolfi 03:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

You wrote "the phrases 'Languages of the Caucasus' and 'Caucasian languages' have the same meaning in English". Not in America they don't. Non-linguists in North America are more familiar with the white people sense of Caucasian than with the sense "of or pertaining to the Caucasus". Do we really need a list of languages spoken by white people? --Damian Yerrick (☎) 21:27, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you really mean, that phrase 'Caucasian languages' could be meant as 'Languages spoken by white people'? In America, I mean. In that January split I actually proceeded from Russian usus where LofC & CL are distinguished. In fact, later I recognized that in English LoC is equivalent to CL but since I read several books and articles and normally LoC don't include all languages of Caucasus but only NWC+NEC+SC. --Koryakov Yuri 17:51, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, some Americans have IQ below 100. They don't know what a "Caucasus" is, and they know "Caucasian" from works by Eminem such as "The Way I Am". How much knowledge should we presuppose for readers coming into the article that "Caucasian languages" redirects to? --Damian Yerrick (☎) 03:10, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Basque" section

The claim that it is only ...the fact that Basque, an isolated language spoken in the Pyrenees, also has an ergative case system has led many scholars to propose it as a displaced member of some Caucasian family... is simply wrong.

I'd rewrite the section as (I'm not a native speaker of English, so you'd have to correct me):

"The impossibility to link Basque, an isolated language spoken in the Pyrenees, with its Indoeuropean neighbours has made many scholars to seek its relatives elsewhere. Lexical and morphological clues (ergativity among them) have been reminiscent of the languages spoken in the Caucasus. Comparisons have been made to all the three families (Northwest Caucasian, Northeast Caucasian and Kartvelian), yet the suggested evidence is generally considered as yet undecisive, and the question of the distant Basque's relatives thus remains open. Search the individual language families' articles for details of their higher-level relationship proposals." --Pet'usek 12:32, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Moreover, since there are more hypotheses concerning the distant relatives of Basque (Dene-Caucasian, Afro-Asiatic, Nostratic), I would not include this information here, of course, since this should (or could) be mentioned in the article on Basque itself.--Pet'usek 12:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Dené-Caucasian" section

Again, the paragraph dealing with the Dené-Caucasian hypothesis is, mildly speaking, not very good. Let me cite it here: "...Recently, linguists such as Sergei Starostin have proposed a Dene-Caucasian superfamily which would include, among others, the North Caucasian languages and Na-Dené. In Sarostin's version, Hurro-Urartian and Northeast Caucasian are related only at a higher level of this family called Sino-Caucasian..." My criticism is based on several points:

  • 1: "Recently" is very vague - even incorrect. How recent is the beginning of the 1980's? It is relative.
  • 2: S. A. Starostin proposed "Sino-Caucasian" (=North Caucasian, Sino-Tibetan, Yeniseian, Burushaski) in the early 1980's, J. D. Bengtson proposed Macro-Caucasian around that time (Vasconic, Burushic, Northeast & Northwest Caucasian), and later Dené-Caucasian, based on works of other linguists, including Sapir, Shafer (Sino-Dené), Nikolayev (Na-Dené, NC, etc.), Diakonoff etc. Though the theory is called Dené-Caucasian, Starostin never stopped calling it Sino-Caucasian. Today, an opinion prevails among the proponents, that there were three main branches - Macro-Caucasian (Burushic, Vasconic, NEC, NWC), Sino-Dené (Sino-Tibetan, Yeniseian, Na-Dené) and, possibly, Sumerian.
  • 3: Hurro-Urartian is considered more NEC-like, Hattic is considered more NWC-like.
  • 4: WHY SHOULD NA-DENÉ BE MENTIONED HERE AT ALL?

My suggestion: Since the information on Hattic, Basque and Dené-Caucasian belong to the basic pillars of the North Caucasian (NEC+NWC) and Dené-Caucasian belong to a single theory in fact, why don't we merge them? The Dené-Caucasian part needs rewriting anyway. Wouldn't a brief mention of it suffice??? --Pet'usek [petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com] 18:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map

The map shown here has always left something to desire imo, there is a map which is more accurate in some respects on this website: http://www.hunmagyar.org/turan/caucasus/caucasus.html You will see that amongst other things it includes the division between the various languages withing the Kartvelian family. I think we should see whether we can use that map, or, if that proves impossible, we should include a link to it in the article. Sephia karta 17:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Btw, on their copyright page they state that all ethnolinguistic maps stem from National Geographic. Sephia karta 17:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

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