I personally suspect it's because noone ever spoke the PIE that gets reconstructed. They spoke one language, with some specific special sounds, and their descendants 4 generations later also spoke a language with a few slightly different special sounds. When you then smash 20 of those generations together with the 5 dialects around it into one language it has tons of weirdness more than any specific person ever dealt with.PIE reconstruction is not exception, the same thing could be said about Proto-Chinese reconstructions-as weird as possible, like if linguists wanted to see them as their conlang fantasies fullfilled
Which language, other than Hebrew, could be revived from a position with zero native speakers?
- Thread starter Intransigent Southerner
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I am thinking that such a large scale revival would have to mirror Israel's use of Hebrew for building national identity. Maybe...
- Scottish Gaelic in an independent Scotland?
- Hawaiian in a decentralized U.S. where various states, though still "united", drift towards day to day autonomy?
- Scottish Gaelic in an independent Scotland?
- Hawaiian in a decentralized U.S. where various states, though still "united", drift towards day to day autonomy?
I often think an Egypt dominated by an Arab power that insisted they were Arabs could really have a nativist movement that stressed non-Arabness. That could really push Coptic as the national language to revive.
The challenge is that Arabic is the language of the Quran, so Muslims (90 % of the Egyptian population) have an attachment to it. The Christians do have an attachment to Coptic, and perhaps they could revive it, but they are only 10 % of the population. If they could break away and form their own independent nation they could try it, but that is difficult to say the least...
Well, Egypt has not been a name used long by the Muslims if memory serves, so a Coptic state could be called Egypt and the Arab state in Egypt Misr or something else.
I believe Christians were a much bigger chunk of the population 100 years ago. And remember you had secular nationalist heroes in a lot of Muslim countries. An Ataturk type movement could be far less dependent on Islam.
Or alternatively, an Islamic scholar elite that collaborated with a hated Arab oppressor could see mainstream Islam fall in support. Especially if paired with Christian churches that played similar roles in the independence struggle that they did in Korea.
Yikes, I thought the opening post said very few native speakers. I now see that is specifies the language must be dead. I agree though, neither native Hawaiian nor Gaelic in Scotland are dead.
Honestly seems easier for a nationalist Coptic minority government to be placed into power by an interested colonial power.
Albert.Nik
Banned
I am going to discuss such revivals in the FH along with revival of ethnicities. I am working out on timelines and it wouldn't be long before I would post a timeline containing that.
Hurrians,Old Indo-Aryans before splitting into Mitanni and Vedic,Tocharians,Urartians,Scythians,Proto-Indo-Iranians and few others in the Fertile Crescent and North of it whom I have not decided yet for now would be done first. Stay tuned there for those interested in this thread.
Hurrians,Old Indo-Aryans before splitting into Mitanni and Vedic,Tocharians,Urartians,Scythians,Proto-Indo-Iranians and few others in the Fertile Crescent and North of it whom I have not decided yet for now would be done first. Stay tuned there for those interested in this thread.
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Albert.Nik
Banned
I can add some potential candidates for within the subject of this thread without a futuristic ethnicity revival.
Sogdian language:Most Tajiks are said to have descended from Sogdians and the language of Sogdia was changed after a Persian invasion(Tajik is Western Iranian language and Sogdian is Eastern).
Old/Pre-Sanskrit/Indo-Aryan: A lot of Indians are enthusiastic to have this revived which is claimed to become a link language and solve an identity crisis that runs deep today.
Urartian: A lot of Armenians claim descent from an ancient Caucasian ethnicity called Urartians who established Urartu state in the Armenian highlands. Hurrian,a close language could see light through this as well.
And as many others said,Latin in Europe mainland.
Babylonian/Sumerian/Elamite/Akkadian/Assyrian,etc: Ba'athists were kind of obsessed with ancient Fertile crescent to the extent that you see them included in the first stanza of the national anthem of Iraq till 2004. If you had let the Ba'athists stay in power,a possible project to revive these language could happen. Only 'could'.
These are some I can think of.
Sogdian language:Most Tajiks are said to have descended from Sogdians and the language of Sogdia was changed after a Persian invasion(Tajik is Western Iranian language and Sogdian is Eastern).
Old/Pre-Sanskrit/Indo-Aryan: A lot of Indians are enthusiastic to have this revived which is claimed to become a link language and solve an identity crisis that runs deep today.
Urartian: A lot of Armenians claim descent from an ancient Caucasian ethnicity called Urartians who established Urartu state in the Armenian highlands. Hurrian,a close language could see light through this as well.
And as many others said,Latin in Europe mainland.
Babylonian/Sumerian/Elamite/Akkadian/Assyrian,etc: Ba'athists were kind of obsessed with ancient Fertile crescent to the extent that you see them included in the first stanza of the national anthem of Iraq till 2004. If you had let the Ba'athists stay in power,a possible project to revive these language could happen. Only 'could'.
These are some I can think of.
Problem with these ancient languages is that they are effectively extinct and such peoples who spoke them are not anymore exist. Furthermore these have been extinct so long that them wouldn't have any practical usage in modern era, not even in everyday life. We even don't know enough about them and some of them haven't even any current living relative languages. For example Sumerian is totally language isolate. There is not any proven connection with other languages and it has been effectively extinct 3000 years. And some of these languages are so extremely difficult that only few people bother learn them if not be historians or very devoutly intrested about them.
With languages that have become "extinct" a major problem is vocabulary. As new technology, as an example, comes around new terms/words have to be borrowed and modified for the local phonemes etc or made up. There is no way to say "steam engine" in Sumerian, so you'll have to kludge together some words to make it up (like crunching German or Dutch words together), borrow the term and make it "Sumerian", or simply make new nouns out of whole cloth. As an example, this sort of thing was a difficulty when "modern" Hebrew was pushed in to general use as "religious" Hebrew never evolved terms for modern technology and concepts - words like "tank" and "transgender" are not in the Torah, Talmud, Mishnah, etc. The longer a language has been extinct, the more of this you have to do and soon becomes almost like making up a new language using grammatical and pronunciation rules from the old one. Of course, odes anyone really know what spoken Sumerian sounded like - of course not.
Albert.Nik
Banned
Languages are quite emotional things. They evoke your response of your community,descent and your your security of the Future to a large extent.
Now,it would be possible in the future to revive extinct ethnicities/people/Volk with Genetic Engineering,Social Engineering,etc which would no longer be a taboo in post scarcity World. And then,languages would come with them.
In some cases,it could be possible without that as well. For example,Celts and Germanic peoples and Tocharians are said to be almost identical. If you teach Tocharian language to a few children in a community in Dublin,Edinburgh or Stockholm,you could consider them as a revived Tocharian race scientifically. Like that,Marsh Arabs are said to be Sumerians,Leventines are said to be from Bronze age peoples,etc.
Hebrew was anyway relatively easy when it was already used as liturgic language so many Jews knew how to speak that and knew words. But we don't know exactly how Sumerian sound and there hasn't heard Sumerian in centries. Hebrew has too some still spoken relatives like Arabic and in some degree Yiddish which is too quiet Hebrew influenced. But Sumerian hasn't any known relative language. And Sumerian had so extremely difficult grammar that no one bother learn that.
And another problem is that there is not any direct cultural successor for Sumerians. Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq are said to be descendants of Sumerians. But otherwise there is not any common thing between Marsh Arabs and Sumerians. Arabs speak already Arabic and are Muslims. Not way that they just would begin speak some ancient pagan language which even can't use in modern world when it has been exticnt so long time. And same problem is too with many other ancient language. Most usual problems are that them haven't any cultural connection to modern day and they have been so long time extinct that using of them in modern day would be impossible without radical update. There is not way how you say "nuclear bomb" in Sumerian or Etruscan. And you can't speak about univese very well with any ancient group. Try for example translate "A Brief History of Time" in Sumerian. Or try write any Tom Clancy's technotriller in Etruscan. Not easy. In modern day is too many things which are totally impossible translate to ancient language and anyone hasn't need revive them. Hebrew was succesful only because there was Jews and they needed common language in their new homeland.
Albert.Nik
Banned
For such words which need new terms,English,German or French Words could be used if not derived terms from that language.