Talk:Proto-language
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a proto-language is not necessalrily reconstructed. The point is however, that if it is attested, it will not be actually referred to as proto-something, because it will have its own name. For example, Latin is also Proto-Romance. It should be made clear that it's the *last* common ancestor of a group of related languages (eg. Proto-Italic is not Proto-Romance, even though all Romance languages derive from it) Dbachmann 11:02, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
"In a protolanguage, each sentence consists of one two-word phrase"
Where did it come from? Any source or links? =)
- user:Anonymous56789 added it. I would be very cautious with his edits. For example he made University of Berlin. To my knowledge there are 3 universities in Berlin, but none with that definitive name. I asked him on the talk page to back this up (and on his user talk page), and she has not responded until now. If you know better, then go ahead and remove the above sentence, I think I'm removing the content from University of Berlin as well. Cheers --snoyes 01:05 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC) (ps. just put in two dashes before signing otherwise it makes a horizontal rule (I corrected it).)
A proto-language is indeed necessarily reconstructed. Latin, especially Classical Latin, is not the same thing as Proto-Romance, but it is very close to it. As far as I can tell, there is no difference between the neologism proposed language and the established term proto-language, which is why I'm recommending the former be merged here. See also my comments at Category talk:Proposed languages. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 20:13, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
well, if you are drawing a distinction between a language as recorded, and a language as actually spoken, every language needs to be 'reconstructed', since nobody has the full set of utterances of any language available. I would rather recommend that we split the 'absolute' sense (almost-a-language) from the 'relative' sence (common predecessor). These are two essentially unrelated meanings lumped together at present. Maybe we can treat the "relative" sence over at proposed language, while the absolute sense can remain here' Baad 13:32, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
- We can't create meanings here; that's not what an encyclopedia is for. A proto-language is commonly defined a common ancestor language reconstructed through the comparative method of historical linguistics. I don't know of any common definition of "proposed language"; it seems to be a neologism and therefore inappropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 13:44, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Names of split articles
If we split the page into two separate articles and redirect it to a disambig page (which I wholeheartedly support), there's the question of what the two articles should be named. In my opinion, just Proto-language (historical linguistics) and Proto-language (glottogony), maybe? What do others think? Take care, --Miskwito 02:45, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
