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INVENTED VERSUS CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGES
(Contact) There are repeated references to languages having been invented
by linguists over the millennia and by Roman Catholic clergy since the 6th
Century. It might be better to refer
to most of these as “Constructed”, “Modified,” or
"Developed." It is doubtful that linguists could have
eliminated many aboriginal words from the ancient languages. In the case of modern Basque, virtually all words
starting with “Vowel-Consonant-Vowel” (VCV)
are invented, not modified or developed. They form almost exactly half of the
Basque vocabulary. The other half was probably inherited from the languages
spoken in Neolithic and Paleolithic times. Originally the VCV half was in the
tightly controlled domain of the clergy, that's why it did not change in
5,000 years. Then a time came that the VCV half was released by the clergy
and mixed with the Neolithic language to become modern Basque, not very long
ago, probably 500 years at most (Edo Nyland, pers. commun.). This probably
happened because it had been the Basque grammarians, working for the
Benedictines, who created the Indo-European languages. By that time, the average Benedictine
monks could no longer speak the native Saharan
language. The Neolithic half was
always in the domain of the people and subject to change or modification.
However, this change was kept at a minimum because the pre-literate peoples
had professional storytellers going from tribe to tribe, who insisted on
maintaining the original language and word order. The Dravidian
languages must be the product of modification of Neolithic Saharan over time.
These do not have the VCV vocabulary. |