Question about Brennos' interview

[Rex Somnorum]

So, in terms of some powerful group, who would you suggest that might be? Who else in Western and Northern Europe had such a strong hand, and a literate elite capable of exemplifying 'proper' grammatical and lexical knowledge? Latin has, in fact, continued to dominate language in terms of it having ben seen as the language of learning. It's orthography and phonology have affected all of the languages of Europe well after the fall of the Empire.

No idea. I claim no expertise in the area. I'm only arguing to improve my own understanding.

Language simply doesn't work like a family tree. There is no yy+ xy formula. Standard languages are not precursors to degenerate dialects (which is all that a tree can model) but rather dialects are constantly evolving due to contacts and isolations from other dialects. Dialects (and therefore language) are continually changing. In order to understand something of the languages of the past the best we can do is try and understand the sound systems and cognates between different groups. Trying to formulate some notional proto-Celtic or proto-Germanic is meaningless, because those languages did not exist (proto-PIE, the 'ultimate' goal ends up with roots that are, to all intents and purposes, phonologically empty, so that one might wonder quite how anyone could understand what anybody was saying amongst all the gasps and hoiks).

Language trees, though inadequate in their current form, can be modified to represent a constantly shifting lingual environment where not all the languages are stem from the same root or even stem from a root at all but develop independently. The problem seems to me not to be the abstraction of trees but current designs, especially where all the languages in a group spring from the same ancestor. After enough alteration, though, I suppose the system's not really a family tree anymore.


On the subject of ancient languages, I'm curious as to which tongue was used to represent the Sweboz in EBI. And how has new research changed the linguistic picture of the Sweboz and Lugiones in EBII?