Talk:Linguistic reconstruction

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:38, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Clarity for the layman
This article could use a bit of work. It's not very clear to someone like me who has not studied linguistics to this depth. Some real-life examples with explanations would be helpful. Not being familiar with the inside-ballpark terminology, the meaning of an asterisk symbol seems ambiguous to me. Please leave me a note at my talk page if you take any action or follow up, as I don't check my watchlist often these days. Thanks! Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 15:25, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Removed category
Category:Reconstructed languages was a subcategory of Category:Constructed languages. I removed Category:Constructed languages on the grounds that "reconstructed language" and "constructed language" are two very different things. The former refers to a languages, such as Proto-Indo-European or Proto-Germanic, which is not directly attested but has been reconstructed based on various evidence; the exact reconstruction is often in dispute to a greater or lesser extent. Presumably, this means a language from farther back in time than the written record goes; usually a language with extant descendants.

A constructed language, however, is one which, instead of evolving more-or-less naturally, as all major extant languages did, was designed by someone; Esperanto is the most famous example.

Okay?--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 15:18, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

unclear attested form
- OK. Understood. An attested word from which a root in the proto-language is reconstructed - OK... is a reflex. - OK.
 * Texts discussing linguistic reconstruction commonly preface reconstructed forms with an asterisk (*) to distinguish them from attested forms.

fif -> *fiv -> five fif is an original and actually attested form. five is the current form of the number 5 in English.
 * Let's see an example:
 * fiv is a reconstructed form, and according to the explanation above, it is NOT an attested form.


 * Now lets get back to the text:

which may be either attested or reconstructed. - OK. Still on track. Wait a minute, both fif and fiv are known derivatives. What makes them "known"? I thought if it is unattested that means nobody ever heard it or recorded it! Reflexes of the same source are cognates.... -OK, but I still think this needs a rephrase. פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 13:33, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
 * More generally, a reflex is the known derivative of an earlier form, - huh?