Indo-European languages of Europe

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For native speakers of most modern Romance languages (apart from some reminiscence of the neuter case), Nordic (Germanic) languages, English, Dutch, or Bulgarian, it is usually considered “difficult” to learn an inflected language like Latin, German or Russian: cases are a priori felt as too strange, too “archaic”, too ‘foreign’ to the own system of expressing ideas. However, for a common German, Baltic, Slavic, Greek speaker, or for non-IE speakers of Basque or Uralic languages (Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian), cases are the only way to express common concepts and ideas, and it was also the common way of expression for speakers of older versions of those very uninflected languages, like Old English, Old Norse or Classical Latin; and their speakers didn’t consider their languages “difficult” …

Therefore, to use different cases is the normal way to express concepts that non-inflected languages express in different ways - i.e. not “more easily”, but “differently”. That’s the point Esperantism has lost in its struggle to convince the world of its “easiness”. In fact, the idea that cases are difficult is so impregnated in Esperantism, that some did create “an old version” [probably deemed "more difficult"] of Esperanto called Arcaicam Esperantom, as a fiction of evolution from an older language…

Thus, among the European population (more than 700 million inhabitants), just around 200 million speak non-inflected languages, while the rest use at least 4 cases to express every possible concept. Within the current EU, more or less half of its speakers speak an inflected language - like German, Polish, Czech, Greek, Lithuanian, Slovenian, or non-IE Hungarian, Finnish, etc. - as their mother tongue.

For example, the literal sentence “I go to-the-house” [not exactly the common expression "I go home" which is expressed differently in each language] would be said in Spanish “voy a-la-casa”, or in French “je vais a-la-maison”, in Italian “vado a-la-casa”, etc. Therefore, in an “easy conlang” for Western European speakers, say in something called Esperanto, a sentence like “io vo a-lo-haus” is apparently “easy”, because the syntactical structure is similar to those non-inflected languages.

NOTE: In fact, there are other interesting concepts behind the use of the obligatory subject before the verb in languages like English or Esperanto, that appears usually in those languages that have reduced the verbal system; therefore, the subject is necessary only in those languages whose verbal inflection becomes too simple to express an idea that must still be expressed some way - more or less like different combinations of prepositions and articles are often needed to substitute the lost nominal inflection, as we discuss here. In those ‘less innovative’ languages that retain a rich verbal system, the subject appears for some reason, as e.g. in Spanish “yo voy a la casa”, which must be expressed differently in innovative languages, using different linguistic resources, like e.g. Eng. “I myself go to the house” (or maybe “it’s me who…“), or French “moi, je vais a la maison”. Is that obligatory subject and ’simplified’ verbal system of Esperanto “easier”, and therefore “better”…? I guess not. It’s just an imitation of French or English that Mr. Zamenhoff deemed “better” for his creation to succeed, given the relevance of those languages (and its speakers’ acceptance) back in 1900…

On the other hand, in German it would be “Ich gehe nach-Haus-e”, in Latin, it is “vado ad-domu-m”; in Polish “idę do-dom-u” etc. The use of declensions, if compared to uninflected languages, is usually made of just a simple change of “preposition+article” -> “declension” - or, in the ‘worst’ case (as it is shown here), by a “preposition+article” -> “preposition+declension”.

To sum up, can some languages be considered “more difficult” than others? Yes, indeed. If seen from a European point of view, some linguistic features are not easy to learn: the Arab writing system, Chinese unending kanjis, Sino-Tibetan or Vietnamese tones, etc. can cause headaches to [adult] speakers willing to learn them… Also, from an English, French or Spanish point of view, learning a language like Esperanto might seem “better” because of its apparent and equivocal “easiness”… But, between (a) all Indo-European speakers learning a non-inflected language like English [or 'easy' Esperanto], or (b) all Indo-European speakers learning an inflected one like Proto-Indo-European?; I guess there is no language “easier” than other, and therefore the “better” option should come from other rational considerations, not just faith in the absurd ramblings of an illuminated Polish ophthalmologist.

Therefore, the question remains still the same: why on earth should any European willing to speak a common language select an invented one (from the thousand “super easy” ones available) than a natural one, like the ancestor of most of their mother tongues, Proto-Indo-European?

Following Mithridates’ latest post and comment on artificial language compared to revived language, I consider it appropriate to share my point of view on this subject. For me, the schematic classification of languages into “natural” and “artificial” could be made more or less as follows, from ‘most natural’ (1) to ‘most artificial’ (20):

NOTE 1: There are 20 categories, as there could be just 4 (living, dead, reconstructed and invented) or 6, or 15, or a million categories corresponding to one language each, based on thorough statistical studies of vocabulary, grammar, ‘prestige’, etc. Thus, 20 is only the number that appeared after I classified the languages I know in some personal, general and more or less straightforward classes; the concept looked for by this classification is to locate where proto-languages (and especially Modern Indo-European or Europe’s PIE) are if compared to natural languages and “conlangs”. It is also possibly the minimum number to show the interesting difference between categories 9 and 10.

NOTE 2: one may or may not agree on languages given as examples of this or that particular category; however, the general concept behind individual categories is what matters. For the term ‘(international) prestige’ as it is used here, I took in part as reference Dutch sociologist Abram de Swaan’s Global Language System concept.

1. Spoken languages - with a continuated history of written use and international prestige - own historical vocabulary and grammar enough to communicate everything: English, German, French, Spanish, etc.
2. Spoken languages - with some (interrupted) history of written use and limited international prestige - enough historical vocabulary to build new necessary terms: Polish, Gaelic, Catalan, Occitan, etc.
3. Spoken languages - with limited historical written use or international prestige - limited vocabulary, clear need of lexical and grammatical borrowings (from 1 or 2) to speak in all situations: Ukrainian, Basque, Sardinian, Saami, etc.
4. Spoken languages with no written use at all - many expressions and vocabulary not available; taken if needed from prestigious languages (1 or 2, rarely 3): many native American and African languages, and generally all so-called dialects (like Scots, Asturian or Piedmontese) not written down before the last century.
5. Dead languages - well attested, with enough history of use and [past] international prestige: Classical Latin, Koine Greek, Classical Sanskrit, etc.
6. Dead languages - some well attested history of use: Archaic Greek, Vedic Sanskrit, Old English, Old French, Old Church Slavonic, etc.
7. Dead languages - not well attested - need for some writing decyphering and/or interpretation: Hittite, Avestan, Old Norse, Gothic, Old Prussian, etc.
8. Dead languages - some writings only - writing decyphering and/or interpretation necessary - partially reconstructed with the help of related languages: Mycenaean, Oscan, Gaulish, Cornish, etc.
9. Hypothetical languages - no writings available - good archaeological knowledge - well reconstructed thanks to attested dialects and related languages: Proto-Germanic, Proto-Indo-Aryan, Proto-Slavic, Proto-Greek, Europe’s Proto-Indo-European, etc.
10. Dead languages - some writings only - difficult writing decyphering and/or interpretation - available data not enough for a trustable reconstruction: Lusitanian, Thracian, Etruscan, Iberian, etc.
11. Hypothetical languages - no writings available - some archaeological knowledge - reconstruction available generally deemed correct by linguists - persistent controversy over reconstructed details: Proto-Celtic, Proto-Italic, Proto-Indo-European (III), etc.
12. Hypothetical languages - insufficient linguistic and archaeological [data for a trustable] reconstruction of actual language, speakers and/or time span: Proto-Indo-European (II or “Indo-Hittite”), Proto-Uralic, Proto-Turkic, Proto-Semitic, Proto-Dravidian, etc.
13. Hypothetical languages - no academic consensus over its actual shape, but certainty of existence: Early PIE, Proto-Basque, Proto-Albanian, Proto-Armenian, etc.
14. Corrected languages - strictly based on spoken or dead languages with ‘improvements’: Latino sine flexione, etc.
15. Corrected languages - strictly based on hypothetical languages with ‘improvements’: Sambahsa-Mundialect (a modern PIE with an easier verbal and nominal inflection, borrowed [non-translated] IE vocabulary, etc.).
16. Invented languages - loosely based on a homogeneous group of spoken or dead languages: Germanic IAL (mostly Germanic base), Slovio (based on Slavic languages), Interlingua or Lingua Franca Nova (Romance languages), etc.
17. Invented languages - based on an arbitrary combination (usually deemed “the best” or “the easiest”) of spoken or dead language features: Volapük, Esperanto or Ido (taking mostly European languages); most modern IAL-oriented “conlangs” fit into this category.
18. Invented languages - artistic or fictional ones, based on living or dead languages or group of languages, created following subjective impressions like ‘beauty’ or ‘aggressiveness’ of its sounds or grammatical features: Klingon, Quenya, etc.
19. Invented languages - not based on any known native or hypothetical language, but still human-oriented: philosophical or mathematical languages, Lojban, etc.
20. Invented languages - not human-oriented.

Some additional comments on the language classes:

A) There is no single “completely artificial” or “completely natural” language. Even “level 1″ languages, which develop new terms and syntax mostly from their continuated use (and not from outside), have a need for “artificial” or “imported” terms and sentences: like Spanish “hardware”, “software”, “mouse”, “te llamo de vuelta” (a literal translation of Eng. I call you back), or invented terms like “telefonear”, “televisión”, “ordenador/computador”, etc. Even within terms of Latin origin, innovation is often artificially generalized as the standard: as in Spanish “murciélago”, which was in Old Spanish “murciego” (from Lat. mus-caecus, lit. “blind mouse”, “bat”), extended to “murciégalo”, then metathesized to “murciélago”; now, the Royal Spanish Academy Dictionary (which ‘rules over’ the Spanish ‘normative’ or formal language) states that the innovative murciélago is the formal or correct word; usually parents correct children who say “murciégalo”, and the common use of that word is today generally considered a sign of vulgar speech.

That is an example of what language regulation artificially adds to seemingly natural languages, just like Classical Latin or Classical Greek norms did impose artificial (or innovative) terms over traditional (i.e. native or more natural) ones. In fact, language regulation in international languages like English, Spanish or Portuguese makes the formal language still more artificial to its speakers, and innovative trends looking for a more natural language emerge: hence the Brasilian push for its own writing rules (and minority calls for being recognized as a different Galician-Portuguese language, like Galician), or US English, Argentinian and Mexican Spanish dialectal proud, expressed in writing and pronunciation, adopting their own standards of formal speech different from the historical one.

And even level 20 languages are ultimately based on human perception, so they are necessarily based on nature, and thus never fully artificial, however artificial they might look like…

B) About the Classification:

1. Dead languages are considered “less natural” than ‘living’ ones because their testimony is not direct. We know of them (mostly) because of writings, so they cannot be “imitated” when spoken as naturally as when directly heard and learned (and pronunciation and style corrected) by native speakers.
2. Categories 9 and 10 might be interchangeable, depending on who you ask. For me, it’s obvious that a well-reconstructed language is far ‘better’ in the actual shape and knowledge we have from them than dead languages with some inscriptions nobody is able to read and interpret correctly; in that sense, Proto-Germanic is “more natural” than Etruscan, for example…
3. Also, “corrected” languages could be classified exactly after their “non-corrected” counterparts; thus, level 6 for Latino sine flexione - Classical Latin without declensions - or level 10-12 por Sambahsa-Mundialect - as a European or Common PIE with a simplified inflection system. I don’t think that could be considered the most rational (general) classification, though, as a “corrected language” should be deemed less natural than any other native language, and just before invented ones - because there are a thousand possible “corrections”, and it’s impossible to say which ones are “few enough” for a language be considered “still natural”: for me, an arbitrarily and individually “corrected” language is after a hypothetical one (reconstructed through linguistic studies), and just before a partially invented one, and a partially invented one before a fully invented one. Indeed, if there were a thousand particular classes instead of only 20 general ones, some corrected languages could and should be considered more natural than others.

C) It’s important to note that, as when we talk about Greek we have to distinguish between Proto-Greek, Mycenaean, Archaic Greek, Classical Greek, Koine Greek, etc., when we (at Dnghu) talk about Proto-Indo-European, we refer to the non-laryngeal, Northwestern or European Proto-Indo-European (ca. 2500-2000 BCE). The Indo-European language time span known to us is as follows:

1. Indo-European I (also Early PIE, Pre-PIE, Paleo-European, etc.) unknown, mostly hypothesis; evolved into Proto-Indo-European II. [Hypothetical locations proposed for IE Urheimat].
2. Indo-European II (ca. 4000? BC), reconstructed; evolved into Proto-Indo-European III and Hittite. [Map of Kurgan culture]
3. Indo-European III (ca. 3000 BC), well reconstructed; evolved into Europe’s Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-Iranian, Proto-Greek and Proto-Armenian (possibly Proto-Graeco-Armenian?). [Archaeological map of Yamna & Maykop Cultures]
4. Europe’s Proto-Indo-European (ca. 2500-2000 BC); evolved into Proto-Germanic, Proto-Celtic, Proto-Italic, Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic, among others. [Archaeological map: expansion of Indo-European peoples]

So, when we talk about “reviving PIE for Europe”, we are talking about reviving European (or Northwestern) Proto-Indo-European, which is easier to reconstruct in its vocabulary and syntax details than the general, common Late PIE. Both are obviously well-reconstructed and quite similar (as Old Italian is quite similar to Latin), but there is often no need to determine the exact phonetic value of this or that general PIE word: we only need its European value, which is logically more straightforward. Thus, in PIE *pHter, it is European (and therefore Modern Indo-European) pater because that’s how laryngeal *H evolved in the Northern dialect, no matter how that laryngeal actually sounded like in the common Proto-Indo-European that was spoken in the steppe (or in Renfrew’s Anatolia) a thousand years earlier, to give an Indo-Iranian pitar…

D) Ancient Hebrew probably enters into category 6 (for some maybe 5), and now Modern Hebrew or Israeli fits into category 2 for most people - because there is no continuated language history, and there is (or was) a clear need to borrow “foreign” vocabulary and expressions. That’s similar to what could happen with the European PIE we want to revive, which is in level 9 (or 10), but could be in level 1 if revived - because there is no need for “foreign” vocabulary or expressions to be adapted into PIE, as there are enough Indo-European words and expressions, not only because of the PIE reconstruction, but because of the continuated history of Europe’s Indo-European languages, that allow its modern terms to be ‘translated back’ into PIE… Of course, it could be considered always as a level 2 language, as there will be a need to adapt terms to PIE: like Greek oikonomia to IE woikonomia, etc. BUT, the same need did exist in every Indo-European language, so it’s difficult to classify it (if revived) as 2.

Indeed, as Mithridates puts it, both Israeli and MIE could always be considered level 6 and level 9 languages respectively forever, even if they became spoken, but - exactly as it could happen with Esperanto or Ido - once a language is naturally spoken and naturally transmitted from older generations to newer ones - once there is a real generation of native speakers able to twist and shape it, and make it evolve - I think it becomes a more natural one and changes from category; even if we know that its original category was a different one.

NOTE: So, for example, in the history of Italic languages: Proto-Italic (category 12-13), then Old Latin, probably within category 7-8, which became Classical Latin (in category 1 in year 1 AD) nowadays in category 4, and then Romance languages (earlier category 2 or 3, while Classical Latin was still the lingua franca), most of them now within modern categories 1-3

About the benefits or social need to choose languages from the upper level, more than the lower level ones, if they are available and it’s possible to use them (like European PIE over Esperanto), it is another question I have dealt (and will deal) with in other posts, and which is indeed a matter of personal opinion, like colours. But, to sum it up, it’s not that I or others might prefer it from a rational point of view; the real question is that people - because of their cultural and anthropological backgrounds, not fully known to us - are apparently prepared to accept language revivals - hopefully then proto-language revivals too, in light of Cornish language revival (from category 8 ) - for cultural, social or political purposes, while there has been no real success stories in invented languages, but for some limited groups of enthusiasts who try to continuously overestimate number of speakers, prestige, use, etc. So, if the objective is to speak a common language in the European Union (and not “to unite the world” or “to speak the easiest language possible” or “to communicate with a lingua franca“, etc.), just like there was a clear objective of speaking a common, unifying language in Israel, maybe the correct answer is to select the most rational common language among those available for us Europeans. We can keep speaking English, or a combination of English-French-German, or any combination of any three EU official languages; but, for me, it’s a common European PIE we can speak as OUR language anywhere in Europe, not just a lingua franca or a combination of them, the best option to be a really united people of Europe.

A recent comment on the post about the so-called Grin Report - which explained the benefits of having one common language for Europe -, gives (unintentionally, I guess) still more reasons to support a natural language like Proto-Indo-European over Esperanto and similar inventions:

Le meilleur est l’ennemi du bien, ‘The best is the enemy of the good’; Ever since Ido tried to ‘improve’ on Esperanto, many other constructed languages have come along, but none has achieved anything near to what Esperanto has accomplished

I agree. No artificial (’constructed’) language has achieved what Esperanto has, and no conlang is “better” than Esperanto, because “better” in conlangs is indeed enemy of “good”, as it happens partly in social networks, both ’systems’ (to call the thousand Esperantos something) based on concepts of “popularity ranking” and supposed “number of followers/supporters”: the more popular your system is, the more attention you will be able to attract - no matter how stupid it might be from a logical point of view, it is all a question of ‘relevance’…

In Proto-Indo-European reconstruction, on the other hand, “better” is indeed better than “good”, as a better reconstruction brings the language we want to speak nearer to how it was actually spoken 4.500 years ago by Proto-Indo-Europeans.

The difference between them, to put it easy, is that some of you might say “we are going to call the sun ’suno’ in Esperanto”, while others could say “we are going to call the sun ’soleil’ in Ido”, and so on and on, for ever and ever. The sun had only one name (maybe two) in Proto-Indo-European, and most (old) dialects show its derived term; but they might also show derivations from different original variants, or the original form might be still obscure. That’s why we need to improve our knowledge in Indo-European dialects and Proto-Indo-European reconstruction, just in case we need to replace the (now) common PIE reconstructed *sāwel with a different root, say *sōwl, or a source near to Gmc. zero-grade *sulnos, etc., because of a different Vedic Sanskrit or Tocharian attested word… In any case, we are saying “sun” as Proto-Indo-Europeans did, but it might be more correct to use a variant deemed nearer to the original PIE language, instead of what we use today. Therefore, better is better than good; but just good is also all right in PIE reconstruction for a modern Indo-European language of Europe.

I guess one has to undergo some kind of difficult abstraction to understand this, as many Esperantists don’t seem to get the point: maybe they aren’t always opened to stop speaking (or, better, stop defending) their ‘language’, while at the same time trying others to begin learning it. I can understand the Esperantist reticence to dismiss their wrongly-directed past efforts and hopes, but the time and work already wasted learning or supporting Esperanto won’t be recovered. They still have, though, the opportunity to make good use of their time and wish of a common language for Europe in the future: they only have to take the right decision, not taking on account past mistakes.

there are more than 30,000 book titles in Esperanto! And Esperanto has been around for more than 120 years! Most of the other attempts at a constructed language have fallen by the wayside.

I agree too. Every single conlang apart from Esperanto has failed. And I should add Esperanto has obviously failed as an international language, as you cannot seriously call “international” a ‘language’ that is spoken by some dozens of people in an ‘International Esperanto Convention’ once a year… I am sure more people are able to speak ‘languages’ like Sindarin or Klingon in a regional Lord of the Rings or Star Trek convention anywhere in the world, than Esperantists actually do speak Esperanto in their yearly ‘International Conventions’.

Anyway, entering in your “great numbers” argument, if that code called Esperanto was created in some hours by an illuminated ophtalmologist a 120 years ago, I don’t see how it can compete with a natural language like Proto-Indo-European, derived from an older prehistoric language, spoken for centuries, older than the oldest civilizations of Europe, derived into a thousand dialects still spoken today, and which has been studied and its reconstruction improved by expert linguists for more than 200 years.

To compare ‘number of book titles’, please do a quick search with Google and Google Scholar to see how many scientific research papers and books have been written about Proto-Indo-European, and how many centres and universities have professors teaching Proto-Indo-European to thousands of students each year, and then we can compare the same numbers about your inventions - you can even compare it with the whole number of papers and books which deal with all conlangs, not only Esperanto, if you want…

Also, if Esperanto is (in your words) the most successful conlang in history, and if, after 120 years of being such a great success, there are only (supposedly) 30.000 book titles - you can see I accept your inflated numbers, I don’t care anymore about veracity in Esperantist inventions, it would be a total nonsense to drive the discussion to your imaginary world of ‘facts’ about your ‘language’ - and (supposedly) some thousands of speakers in the world - while Proto-Indo-European, whose revival as a spoken language hasn’t been proposed until two years ago, has already more publications and actual speakers, most of them expert linguistis and philologists.

So I don’t get your point on the advantages of learning Esperanto at all: maybe you Esperantists are still working on a ‘language’ that only you Esperantists want to learn to be able to speak with each other only, like some kind of a secret, super-dooper code only you understand - but, indeed, so easy that you cannot expect to speak without being understood by others… If so, maybe it’s time for some of you practical Europeans to get rid of this ‘art’ called conlanging, if your aim is really to speak a common European (or even international) language, and begin thinking about learning and speaking a common, natural language like Proto-Indo-European, that cannot be “substituted” by other ‘language’ inventions, however ‘better’ or ‘easier’ they might be considered by their fans…

A similar fate awaits Indo-European, which, in its attempt to be more “naturalistic,” has actually become more difficult to learn, with its four conjugations of the verb, for example.

First of all, we never said it is easy, as, in fact, Indo-European is far more difficult than Esperanto and other wrongly-called ‘languages’ formed by simple invented rules+vocabulary, you are right - my nephew says “pa” and “ma” when she wants something: English is more difficult than her ‘language’, so should I write my post in it, and create a group to promote it, only because she and other kids think a “ma & pa” language code is enough to be called ‘language’ and to communicate everything they want to others…?

Following your argument, I have to say Indo-European could probably be considered more difficult than other real, natural languages like English or French. However, you miss two very important points, showing you - like many Esperantists which repeat such perennial equivocal arguments until exhaustion - strive to see the project as “just another Esperanto”, thus perpetuating your mistakes and misconceptions about language and peoples, and possibly the mistakes and misconceptions of others who might read your ‘reasons’:

1) There is no such “attempt to be more naturalistic“: Proto-Indo-European was a natural, spoken language, and it evolved into different dialects, which are the ancestors of modern Indo-European languages. We want to revive an old language, not to create a conlang; to put it easy for you again, we want to speak a real language, not to decide how we will call the sun, or how we will say sentences like “excuse me, can you speak Esperanto?”, that is, if we will prefer “escuso mi, cano tu spik Esperanto?” or an ‘easier’ or ‘better’ (?!) “pardoni me, poti ju parlo Esperanto?“, discussing which one of the thousand possible combinations of sounds is “easier”, or “more beautiful”, or “better”, or (to sum up) which one sounds less stupid for the future learner…

2) The fact that one language is considered ‘more difficult’ than other is in no way an obstacle to speak a language: that’s an important point you Esperantists miss the whole time, ever since the creation of your artificial monster. People began to speak Hebrew again - a modern version of the old, death language called Hebrew - because they wanted, even though your Polish idol was already promoting the “easy Esperanto” as the international language of the future at that very time. People throughout the world have said a big NO to seriously speaking absurd inventions like Volapük or Esperanto in the past 120 years because that’s people’s will. And people will decide if and when they want to speak Indo-European, no matter how “easy” or “difficult” it might be for them or for you.

The difference between Esperantists and Indo-Europeanists, I guess, is that you can spend your time learning how the grandmother of most modern languages was (and mother of some Classical languages, like Sanskrit, Latin or Greek), trying to speak nearly as Proto-Indo-Europeans spoke, waiting to see if the Indo-European language revival has success in the European Union - and knowing that, if it doesn’t succeed, you will still be far better of for learning any modern Indo-European language -; or you can get stuck in your wrong ideas about your ‘party’ or ‘group’ being “right” in trying to speak the ‘best language in the world’ or ‘the easiest language‘, learning a mix of grammatical rules + words that one man or a group of people have imagined they can call ‘language’…

But don’t be afraid, these reasons won’t convince most of you Esperantists and ambitious IAL-conlangs searchers; most of you will keep insisting in speaking your successful creations, that’s normal and people will always have a reason to speak Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Latino sine flexione, and any other ‘historical’ self-made one-minute crap they can find or create: This is a) partly due to Zamenhof’s sad marketing success in convincing other people to call his creation a “language”, and b) partly due to the fact that people necessarily follow the Universal Law of Persistence of Error, and no matter how absurd their old positions might reveal themselves after some time, there will always be a reason to follow the mistaken idea, because of e.g. ‘history’, ‘tradition’, ‘proud’, ‘group pressure’, etc. or the uttermost direct and voluntary ignorance.

If this Universal Law happened and happens with the latest and best peer-reviewed scientifical papers, and I see it everyday in the newest editions of important books on Biochemistry or Physiology, what can we expect from those who share an extravagant idea - the splendid ‘conlanging aiming to achieve the “perfect IAL”‘ idea - which is for Linguistics, if compared to Medicine, like a bad version of homeopathy…?

I’ve added some new pairs which seem to work well - but for the Thai version, which gives usually an error message.

Catalan and Polish languages are now translated automatically, as there is no need to copy and paste the text. New languages include Danish, Persian, Ukrainian, Indonesian, Malay, Thai, Hebrew, as well as experimental Latin and Esperanto options.

Remember you can ask for a translator that works with any language pair included in the English one, although some non-English alternatives include very (very) bad translations.

The Spanish version has been changed to include the Spanish-Catalan language pair, offered by Gencat.

The problem of non-English languages into other languages from InterTrans remains unsolved, as, when it deals with UTF-8, the output shows wrong character processing. If you have any idea on how to correct this (not including the changing of the character set…), please share!

Thanks to all for your comments and posts.

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The Final Version of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, 1st Printed Edition, is ready for the Printer, after the Indo-European Revival News.

For more information on this release and the changes made since last version, please go to the Indo-European language Association.

The association has some collaborative websites prepared for volunteers ready to add some translated sections of the book, and also for experts and people interested in IE languages, to add information about the Proto-Indo-European language and its revival as a modern language within the European Union, namely Indo-European (in English), Indo-Europeen (en Français), Indogermanisch (auf Deutsch), indoeuropeo (in italiano), etc.

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The two introductory sections of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, the main work of the Indo-European Revival Association, has been translated into Spanish as Gramática del indoeuropeo moderno.

The book is, as always, licensed under GFDL - CC-by-sa, so that everyone can copy, redistribute, modify, etc. the work and indeed translate it into any possible language, and then edit and/or publish it.

The association has some collaborative websites prepared for volunteers ready to add some translated sections of the book, and also for experts and people interested in IE languages, to add information about the Proto-Indo-European language and its revival as a modern language within the European Union, namely Indo-European (in English), Indo-Europeen (en Français), Indogermanisch (auf Deutsch), indoeuropeo (in italiano), etc.

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I’ve recently received an email from a new reader who wanted to share with us “his language”, namely a ‘modernized Indo-European’, which he had been working on for very very long before we began our public work at the Indo-European Revival Association, and which he deems “a more modern version of our Indo-European“.

After telling him he was not the first who show up with such a project (there are at least one or two more out there in the Net), I told him very clearly what our opinion about IE is:

A) There are different schools about how to reconstruct the Proto-Indo-European language: those who make a main Satem-Centum distinction, those who talk about a very very old Indo-Hittite, those who (like us) distinguish a Graeco-Aryan dialect (or IE IIIa) and a Northern one (or IE IIIb), those who defend the existence of only one ‘original’ a-vowel, later colored, those who defend only 5 original cases (as we did before changing for a 7+1), those who talk about 9 or more laryngeals, and so on.

B) There are indeed different times for the reconstruction: the theory of the 3 main Stages let one reconstruct at least 2 languages (if we don’t take on account the highly hypothetical IE I or Early PIE), namely IE II or Middle PIE - which includes Proto-Anatolian and Pre-IE III -, and IE III or Late PIE, which is the one usually reconstructed. Also one could go still later in time and try to divide the (seemingly) two main dialects, the Northern or European Dialect (also IE IIIb) and the Southern or Graeco-Aryan Dialect (or IE IIIa): the problem with such a further division is that 1) Balto-Slavic dialects seem to be either in the middle of that classification, or at least within IE IIIb but very influenced by IE IIIa (due possibly to different contacts with Scythians, Persians, Greeks, etc.), and that 2) The IE IIIa (and thus Late PIE as a whole) may be better reconstructed than IE IIIb, as the former was attested earlier (in the form of Vedic Sanskrit and Mycenaean).

C) Also, there are many different ways to use a modern language system using an old language. For example, if we had to use Latin as a modern language, we could select different vocabulary (older forms, mediaeval and newer loans), different expressions (older syntax, newer modisms), etc. and there could be lots of schools defending more purism, more tradition, a complete renewal, etc.

If we sum up the aforementioned possibilities, and try to ascertain the number of possible outputs, one could conclude that there is no single Indo-European, but a hundred different combinations:

- Indo-Hittite with 3 laryngeals and without feminine, 5 noun-case declension, with Latin-only alphabet and Satem-Centum distinction in writing, OV syntax.

- Northern Dialect without laryngeals (with an -a), without augment in Aorist, with 8 (or 7+1) nominal cases, with dialectal Conditional and Passive, OV and VO mixed syntax.

- and so on…

Each one could have a different name, say ‘Bokmål’, ‘Nynorsk’, ‘Samnorsk’, ‘Riksmål’ ‘Høgnorsk’, etc., as the different Norwegian ‘languages’ or, better, language systems. But I think everyone would agree that, while the language may differ a lot from one system to another, the language spoken would still be the same, i.e. a very diffuse “Indo-European”, or (following the example above), a very diffuse “Norwegian” language.

There are a hundred different examples about how such internal and external tensions are usually dealt with, as with the unified Basque (Euskara Batua) opposed to its dialectal diversity, or the different Cornish language systems, or the Hebrew revival (with Semitic purists against modern influences), etc., not to talk about the inner and external tensions of ‘normal’ languages like Spanish or French, which are often subjected to “unifying-dividing” efforts - as e.g. the Asturian “language/dialect”, sometimes included as Spanish by Spanish philologists, sometimes not, always trying to include modern dialects like Argentinian, Mexican, etc. along with the ‘traditional’ dialects like Asturian-Leonese or Aragonese; or Francoprovençal with French, or Alemannic within High German (Hochdeutsch), and so on.

In any case, I think, there is a very clear line which separates all those language systems designed (more or less artificially) for a natural language, from artificial languages like Volapük, Solresol or Esperanto, which are inventions not distinguishable from Klingon, Sindarin or any secret language that anyone could have created at home when still a child.

One example I use with sceptics on PIE reconstruction could be mentioned here.

Proto-Indo-European is like the corrupted skeleton of a very old dinosaur: you can discuss whether such skeleton was actually this or that way, pertained to this or that species of dinosaurs, came from this or that hypothetical ancestor, and derived in those other dinosaurs this or that way, etc. You cannot, however, discuss (in a serious conversation) whether they lived with Noah, whether they didn’t exist at all because it’s a divine proof of our faith, or whether, unlike modern animals, they didn’t exist at all because we have no ‘real proof’ about it.

I will not discuss the implications of trying to draw a complete dinosaur from its bones only, as long as you don’t try to discuss the very existence of those bones, or try to compare our reconstruction of that dinosaur with your drawing of a dragon.Maybe your dragon is widely accepted as something useful, or beautiful, or even as something better than our drawing of the possible dinosaur behind those damaged bones; but please, let be serious to some extent, and don’t try to mix the Lord of the Rings or Star Trek with a manual of paleontology. Tolkien’s masterwork might be great, but it’s not ‘better’ or ‘easier’ (or whatever adjective you may apply) than the manual of paleontology; they just move in different dimensions.

As a conclusion, one may expect different modern language systems for Proto-Indo-European - some will be ‘easier’, some ‘purer’, some others ‘more modern’, etc. -, but still the language will be the same. The question is not whether such systems are possible (they obviously are), but whether this or that system is just an improvement made on the linguistic framework that contains the natural language behind it, or instead include random changes that a visionary (like Mr. Zamenhoff) wants to make to the natural skeleton of a language (or languages), hiding it as an improvement in, say, “usability”, “learning time”, “similarity with modern IE”, etc.

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