Tree of Indo-European Languages (image) | Hacker News Reader

Tree of Indo-European Languages (image)

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10 pointsvinnyglennon5 comments

An obvious mistake on a map. There is no such "language" - Latvian. Latvian is a modern mix of Latgalian and German, less than 700 yrs old (some say Kuronian also was there). Semigallian is a hoax. Bishop Albert in "Chronicles" called tribal cultures "Semigalls" - half galls! They probably spoke balto-slavic proto-language, closer to some proto-Russian, than modern Latgalian. Their rulers were actually russian counts, mentioned by the same Albert in XIII cent. So the actual branch is Kuronian, Latgalian, Galindan, Prussian. Not sure about Selonian. Sudovian - recent Polish invention, never existed. (suudi in Latvian means sh#t). Add modern chimeroid langs as Lithuanian and Latvian and pic is complete. I suspect Indian branch has the same problems.

Edit: forgot vod people, also called krevingi, they still existed in the end of the 19th cent, few families.

That's a massive tree and the fact that you noticed an error with Latvian reminds me of this: http://www.worldgolf.com/wglibrary/ross/ross14.html

But, seriously, I'm impressed with your very knowledgeable answer. It's very interesting.

If Latvian isn't a language, what would you call it? A creole? A dialect of Latgalian? Just because a language draws from languages outside its immediate language family doesn't mean it's not a language (or else you'd have to take English off the map as well).

Defining what makes a language a language is a very political issue, but there are some standard ways to judge. The half-joking criteria is whether it has an army and navy. Another is mutual intelligiblity—can speakers of a different "language" understand it and be understood by native speakers?

Oh yeah, man. Latvians defy Latgalian being a language. Despite the very fact the word "Latvian" never existed before XVII century.

I find it eminently entertaining that you expose Latvian as a "chimeroid" language and then use Latvian to debunk another language name! I couldn't muster a criticism of your post on my best day; I simply like this as a reflection of the sheer complexity of the enterprise.

And as a musician, it modestly terrifies me that there is an entire language branch/split based on aoelian vs. doric.

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