Ancient Babylonian Music

[Ideologue]

IDK if that's accurate.

You can construct some basics of pronunciation of dead languages and "Babylonian" has a fairly close descendant in Assyrian.   

Here's what a Sumerian might have looked like:

Get your own dad.

Seriously, it looks like my dad.

[Admiral Yi]

IDK if that's accurate.

TOTALLY INCORRECT

[Queequeg]

That's Terrence Malick. 

[Ideologue]

No wonder my dad likes Badlands so much.

[Queequeg]

IDK if that's accurate.

TOTALLY INCORRECT

Kids are sane and will try to spell words how they are pronounced. 

As a kid you had to learn that "knight" was spelled "knight" and not "niit". 

We have records of kids learning languages, or people who are not fully brainwashed in to spelling things stupidly.   From this it's not that difficult to map changes in pronunciation or practical matter of how a language was spoken.

[Admiral Yi]

Kids are sane and will try to spell words how they are pronounced. 

As a kid you had to learn that "knight" was spelled "knight" and not "niit". 

We have records of kids learning languages, or people who are not fully brainwashed in to spelling things stupidly.   From this it's not that difficult to map changes in pronunciation or practical matter of how a language was spoken.

So when we see that a kid spelled ">>>^^" as ">>^^", we know what exactly about the pronounciation?

[Queequeg]

We can see change.

The thing I remember most is the Russian formation of "okanye"-basically, Russians stopped giving a fuck about almost every vowel in the language that wasn't stressed.  So good, "khorosho", is pronounced "kharasho" not "KHOROSHO".  People started making this mistake around the time of the Mongol conquest and indicates a big shift in the language.  A lot of things like this have happened in English, I just don't know the rules as well. 

[Queequeg]

Also foreigners don't give a shit about how the word they are borrowing is spelled.

Early Slavic boat is "karabl", from the early Byzantine Greek "karabel."  This means that the Slavs were interacting with Greek speakers who had ships prior to the time the Greeks lost the "b" phoneme and merged it with "v" (Russian "Vasilij" is the Greek name "Basil" because it was introduced later.)

[Grinning_Colossus]

The coolest cognate that I encountered this week was Angra Mainyu = 'angry man.'

[Razgovory]

Well, Spellus sucked any fun out of the subject.

Once a thread is thoroughly Razzed, it's dead.  At least Spellus makes it sound like he knows something other than what he read on Wikipedia right before posting.

Say what you will, you never admit a strategy has failed.  You have tried to get everyone on this board to ignore me for what?  4 years now?  Hasn't worked.  We don't even have an ignore function anymore, and you still try.  I have a feeling I will be long dead and buried and you'll still be trying to convince people to ignore me.  At least then you'll have some success.

[Razgovory]

How much do we even know about Sumerian's genetic relationships?

It has none.  It's a language isolate.  This is sort of like a person who speaks Japanese trying to sing authentic Etruscan by studying church Latin.

[Razgovory]

Also foreigners don't give a shit about how the word they are borrowing is spelled.

Early Slavic boat is "karabl", from the early Byzantine Greek "karabel."  This means that the Slavs were interacting with Greek speakers who had ships prior to the time the Greeks lost the "b" phoneme and merged it with "v" (Russian "Vasilij" is the Greek name "Basil" because it was introduced later.)

Is that related to the English word "caravel"?

[Queequeg]

Also foreigners don't give a shit about how the word they are borrowing is spelled.

Early Slavic boat is "karabl", from the early Byzantine Greek "karabel."  This means that the Slavs were interacting with Greek speakers who had ships prior to the time the Greeks lost the "b" phoneme and merged it with "v" (Russian "Vasilij" is the Greek name "Basil" because it was introduced later.)

Is that related to the English word "caravel"?

Obviously.  Guessing through the Sicilians or Venetians with Spain as an intermediary, but that's a guess. 

[Martinus]

IDK if that's accurate.

TOTALLY INCORRECT

Kids are sane and will try to spell words how they are pronounced. 

As a kid you had to learn that "knight" was spelled "knight" and not "niit". 

We have records of kids learning languages, or people who are not fully brainwashed in to spelling things stupidly.   From this it's not that difficult to map changes in pronunciation or practical matter of how a language was spoken.

Only this is a great example of the opposite - because outside of English, no other kid in any other language would spell "knight" as "niit". In most continental European languages "niit" would be phonetically pronounced as "neet". Which proves you cannot deduct pronunciation from phonetic spelling unless you already know the pronunciation of the language in which the word was spelled phonetically - which kinda defeats the purpose.

[jimmy olsen]

Phonetically knight would probably be spelled nite.