u/FlatAssembler

The stories of how the early linguists figured out that Armenian was an Indo-European language are abundant. The story goes that they mistook Armenian for a very divergent Indo-Iranian language because of all of those Indo-Iranian words in it, and only later figuring out that there are around a score of words in it which are not Indo-Iranian, but which can be derived from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European roots using some very weird sound changes (but nonetheless regular: the English 'f' corresponds to Armenian 'h' in both the word for "five", "hing", "father", "hair", and "fire", "hur", as well as a few Indo-European words starting with 'p' that did not survive into modern English). And, nowadays, there are people who seriously consider the possibility that it's not that Armenian has undergone significant sound changes, but that it's the other branches of Indo-European languages that have - that's called the Glottalic Theory.

But you never hear the story of how the early linguists figured out French was a Romance language, that French comes from Latin. It must not have been easy. I speak some Latin. I've made a few YouTube videos in Latin, the most succesful ones being one about compiler theory in computer engineering and one about Croatian river names. And, when listening to most Romance languages, such as Italian or Spanish, I can pick up quite a few words. The grammar is, of course, very different, so much so that you get an impression that those are languages with many Latin loan-words, rather than languages descended from Latin, but that's another topic. But French is - seemingly - an entirely different beast: I cannot pick up any words when listening to it. And I know that, even today, there are still people who are not entirely convinced that French comes from Latin (none of them being professional linguists, of course).

So, how did the early linguists figure out that French comes from Latin?

Meni se osobno čini da je Hegelova izreka daleko bliže istini, da se iz povijesti najvjerojatnije ništa korisno ne može naučiti.

Da razumijete zašto, pogledajte malo povijesnu lingvistiku, znanost donekle sličnu povijesti, ali s daleko manje varijabli.

Nitko u dvjestotinjak godina proučavanja povijesne lingvistike nije uspio naći neku prediktivnu zakonitost o evoluciji jezika.

Zakonitosti tipa Grimmovog zakona deskripcije su onoga što se dogodilo, one ne daju nikakve predikcije o tome što će se dogoditi s jezicima. To jest, ako je Grimmov zakon uopće deskripcija onog što se dogodilo. Ako nije glotalička teorija istinita, koja u povijesnoj lingvistici dobiva sve više maha. Ona u biti kaže da je upravo suprotno od Grimmovog zakona istina. Da nisu armenski i germanski jezici prošli ogromne glasovne promjene koje opisuje Grimmov zakon, nego da su ostale grane indoeuropske familije jezika prošle glasovne promjene suprotne onima što obično podrazumijevamo pod pojmom "Grimmov zakon". U tom je slučaju Grimmov zakon jedva opis uočenog uzorka da, recimo, germansko 'f' odgovara 'p'-u u ostalim indoeuropskim jezicima.

Nemam razloga da sumnjam da je Havlikov zakon približno točan opis onoga što se dogodilo u mnogim slavenskim jezicima, ali takve su zakonitosti zapravo relativno rijetke.

A tipološka pravila tipa Zakona sonornosti (Sonority Sequencing Principle) o evoluciji jezika daju jedva nekakav vague prediction, ako i to. Možemo li reći da Zakon sonornosti predviđa da je glasovna promjena koja zamjenjuje sr- na početku riječi (suglasnički skup koji poštuje Zakon sonornosti, jer je 'r' znatno sonornije od 's') sa str- (koji ne poštuje Zakon sonornosti, jer je 't' znatno manje sonorno nego 's') nevjerojatna? Nisam siguran u to.

I, onda, ako je teško ili nemoguće izvući neke prediktivne zakonitosti iz povijesne lingvistike, zašto očekivati da ih je moguće izvesti iz povijesti, koja je znatno kompliciranija znanost?

How did the early linguists figure out that French is a Romance language (descended from Latin)?