Talk:Sprachbund

South Asian
Is the South Asian language relatedness due to area or due to the widespread adoption of Sanskrit for writing and its influence on the different languages? Jztinfinity 01:37, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm sure the two go hand in hand. Sanskrit's influence on every single language in the Indian subcontinent (except som tribal languages in the east, I think) definitely was also a vehicule of cultural dominance and geographic convenience.Le Anh-Huy 06:46, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

språkknippe?
språkknippe maybe the word for sprachbund in Norwegian it isnt in danish nor swedish. And also what it is called in other languages is not really relevant for the topic.I removed the mention of språkknipper. (in danish it also sounds like a dirty word)--Maunus 01:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Make IPA Links
There's something to be done to the Wiki markup to make the IPA pronunciations links to the IPA article... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.6.254.191 (talk • contribs) 12:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Some examples needed
The article says:

"Likewise, the Romance and Germanic languages of Western Europe (other than English) share many features due to interaction. Similarly there are also features common to languages situated in Europe that are not found in Indo-European languages spoken in India and Iran, but are found in the Uralic languages. This is because of the great migrations across Europe."

As a linguist, I would like to see some specific examples of these similarities, and references to where they are discussed. I'm also unclear on why the existence of similarities among (IE? non-IE as well??) languages of Europe that are not shared with the IE languages of India and Iran is evidence of a sprachbund; I would have thought that might be attributed to separate development of IE languages--unless it's saying that Hungarian, Basque, and other non-IE languages of Europe share features with IE languages of Europe. In any case, some examples would help.

And the alleged similarity of European languages with Uralic languages also needs examples and references.

Mcswell 14:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Who ever said there was a similarity between Indo-European and Uralic? They're so different. The only similar words between them are loan words like "sataana" (Satan). Basque is a language isolate. What could it possibly be sprachbund with? It's not even close to any other language in syntax or vocabulary. I think it has some similar proper nouns, but that's expected. If you're talking about Caucasian languages, that's an entirely different matter. ForestAngel (talk) 06:15, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Typo?
The title of the article is "Sprachbund", but the word "Sprachbutt" appears in the text. MAzari 04:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * vandalism methinks.·Maunus· · ƛ · 07:59, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Australia
I don't think Australia is a Sprachbund at all. If anything, it is an example of the reverse because the population density was much lesser than in other areas. Anyone any thoughts? Munci (talk) 21:09, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

A recent article by Clendon [2006] in Current Anthropology says that the two major groups of Australian Aboriginal languages - Pama-Nyungan and Non-Pama-Nyungan - should be seen as two Sprachbunde. Not being linguistically wise I report but cannot judge his argument beyond saying it seems reasonable. Population density doesn't seem to be a critical factor, I would suggest, but complex intermarriage and ceremonial relationships across language boundaries would potentially support the gradual linguistic borrowing and restructuring suggested. 60.242.50.195 (talk) 10:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)]

Article merged
Article merged: India as a Linguistic Area. India as a Linguistic Area did not have a talk page. Cnilep (talk) 15:28, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

German and French?
I'm no linguist, but is there any evidence supporting a sprachbund between German and French? There are so many similar words. Like "Hummer" and "homer" (lobster). Just wondering if it could be listed as an example.

On that note, why isn't English listed as an example? It's in closer proximity to Romantic countries, yet it's descended from Germanic. Many words have been borrowed from Latin and Greek to make up the English language, yet in no way is English a Romance language. What gives? ForestAngel (talk) 06:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

europe
The section on Europe is extremely unclear. What is meant by South Slavic avoiding the infinitive and future tense? --Ioscius∞ 16:44, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Evidence for Thai & Vietnamese being historically atonal.
Do you have any of this? If so, I would be very interested to read about it. Thanks. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  09:41, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The intro
I attempted to point out in the introduction that a sprachbund may be more apparent than real. Kanguole reverted this claiming that it didn't mean anything and that the hedge is not part of the definition. An introduction, however, isn't limited to a definition, and currently includes other information, such as "Where genetic affiliations are unclear, the sprachbund characteristics might give a false appearance of relatedness." This is typical, and there's no reason to avoid pointing out other possible areas of confusion. In fact, it's likely helpful. I suggest that these clarifications are useful and should be included.--Brett (talk) 18:44, 15 February 2015 (UTC)


 * You made two changes:
 * You inserted the words are thought to into the definition of sprachbund in the first sentence. This qualification does not belong in the definition.  A sprachbund that is more apparent than real just isn't a sprachbund.
 * Later in the introduction, you added Conversely, the clustering of related languages may produce the appearance of a sprachbund where unrelated languages are no more similar than would be expected by chance. The sentence doesn't make any sense.  I guess the idea is that related languages can be mistaken for a sprachbund, but that doesn't seem to be an issue in the literature.
 * Moreover, the point of the lead is to summarize the article, but these additions don't correspond to anything in the body of the article. Kanguole 19:08, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

China, Japan and Korea
I have reverted the addition of China, Japan and Korea to the article. The use of Literary Chinese, Chinese characters and wholesale borrowing is interaction of a different kind, and wouldn't be used as an example in linguistic works about Sprachbünde. Kanguole 18:16, 8 February 2016 (UTC)