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Another issue with macro-families is that they tell us nothing about the internal branching, which is always far more informative. Sure, it's reasonable that all these languages are related, but in what way?

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But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

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Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:

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But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

What's interesting from all of the above, is that we have a large group of languages, that very, very likely descended from a single language (because of all the points Salmoneus pointed out above) but are very difficult to classify as a single language family because all "normal" ways to establish relatedness fail given the time-depth we're talking about (at least 20,000-15,000 years). If we then assume for the sake of argument that there's a thing called Indo-Uralic, or lump in the Semitic languages and whatnot, how are we ever to establish this as valid, given that a proven case of relatedness (or at least, of a common ancestor) can't be linguistically established because of that time-depth. In other words, even though we might have a hunch that Indo-Uralic (or other groupings) might exist, the Amerind case shows us that it is impossible to prove anything, as language, as opposed to living organisms, can evolve in such a way that there's litteraly no way to prove relatedness.


JAL

I wouldn't even be too sure about living organisms. Also, although it's never happened I think a conlang could hypothetically have become the main language of a people. I also think that "human languages" and universals pre-date the human-Neanderthal split.

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ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!

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I remember someone was arguing a long time ago on here exactly this - that the languages of the Americas were descended from conlangs - which is crackpottery on the order of the view that the languages of Europe were created by Basque monks.

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Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:

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[ˌʔaɪsəˈpʰɻ̊ʷoʊpɪɫ ˈʔæɫkəɦɔɫ]

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Blog:

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

Soap's username used to be Merc?

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Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:

Sorry, I forget that people change their usernames. No offence or confusion intended.

_________________
Blog:

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

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...brought to you by the Weeping Elf
Tha cvastam émi cvastam santham amal phelsa. -- Friedrich Schiller
ESTAR-3SG:P human-OBJ only human-OBJ true-OBJ REL-LOC play-3SG:A

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...brought to you by the Weeping Elf
Tha cvastam émi cvastam santham amal phelsa. -- Friedrich Schiller
ESTAR-3SG:P human-OBJ only human-OBJ true-OBJ REL-LOC play-3SG:A