Syllabic division of words

[Richmond Mathewson]

Francis Nugent Dixon wrote:
> Hi from Brittany,
>
> Mark, Thanks for the book info.
>
>> Robert Claiborne  wrote a wonderful book called Our Marvelous
>> Native Tongue.  An excellent read.
> Looks like the right book to read. Ordered today !!
No, it doesn't, sorry.
>
> In return, as you appear to be interested in language origins,
> may I point to an interesting site :
>
> http://www.proto-english.org/
>
> Best Regards
>
> -Francis
>
"Sweeping across centuries and continents, Claiborne traces the
history of English from its roots in the Danube Valley 8000 years ago
to its status to day as native tongue of some 300 million people."

Boy-Oh-Boy, talk about contentious; yet, this theory [the Danube valley]
is presented as if it were fact. Nobody was talking English, or even 
anything
that vaguely resembled it until about 2000 years ago in what is now
Germany and Denmark.
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Nobody knows whether there really was a Proto-Indo-European language,
and if so, where speakers of PIE lived (places suggested are the Indus 
valley,
the Lithuanian marshes, and almost everywhere in between). Supposedly
languages such as Sanskrit, Iranian, Bengali, English, German, Mitanni .....
all spring from this source. Of course this theory is not helped by the fact
that the Mitanni lived in what is now Syria, right, slap-bang in the 
top-dead-centre
of an Afro-Asiatic speaking region.

The Mitanni have been described as of Irano-Indian origin; which seems to
suggest that speakers of PIE-derived languages were moving westwards
rather than eastwards.

There are people who will inform you that Vedic (proto-Sanskrit) was
produced from the mouth of Shri Brahma, and is of divine origin; this, if it
is true, really puts the cat among the pigeons!
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Of course Robert Caliborne was (he is dead) "a writer, editor and musician",
and not an expert in the origins of languages. He was also a folk
musician:

"In the 1940's and 50's, he sang folk songs and taught guitar, music theory
and songwriting. With Pete Seeger, Lee Hays and others, he founded 
People's Songs,
an organization of folk singers and composers that published songs and 
produced concerts.

[ why do my "political toes" curl up whenever I hear of anything with 
the word "People's" in it? ]

In the mid-1950's, he began a second career as an editor of publications 
that included
Scientific American, Time-Life Books and Hospital Practice."

NY Times Obituary.

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Now, if you want to be serious (rather than amusing yourself reading 
about unproven
theories written by a popular journalist) then try these:

The English Language: A Historical Introduction (Cambridge Approaches to 
Linguistics)

and

The Oxford History of English (Paperback)

mind you, you'll pay a bit more for them; but, you get what you pay for.

sincerely, Richmond Mathewson

--------------------------------------------
Just to clarify things: I hold an MA in Linguistics from Southern Illinois
University at Carbondale; have taught courses at University level on
early English and its connexion with other Indo-European languages;
and am married to a person who holds a PhD in Historical Linguistics
from St Andrews University in Scotland.