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Nēpoki: Difference between revisions
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The reason why around 1000 B.C., Nepokian borrowed from Old Chinese, however, is still unavowed. During the Old Chinese period, Chinese culture expanded no more southern than to Yangtze river. Thus the distance between Chinese and Nepokian peoples remained high. There seemed to be a great cultural impact, as Old Nepokan Trunksnqers (nowadays Kulunahanele) and Mrankstsei (nowadays Malanahakahei) clearly go back to the Old Chinese words for Confucius and Mencius. Silk too came to Nepokians this way. | The reason why around 1000 B.C., Nepokian borrowed from Old Chinese, however, is still unavowed. During the Old Chinese period, Chinese culture expanded no more southern than to Yangtze river. Thus the distance between Chinese and Nepokian peoples remained high. There seemed to be a great cultural impact, as Old Nepokan Trunksnqers (nowadays Kulunahanele) and Mrankstsei (nowadays Malanahakahei) clearly go back to the Old Chinese words for Confucius and Mencius. Silk too came to Nepokians this way. | ||
The next | The next big foreign influence started with the upcoming European adventurers and colonialism in the Southern Pacific. As a coincidence, these adventurers were, like the colonialists afterwards, mostly German. Up to now, it is still the only European language with a major impact on Nepokian. As Nepokian lacked vocabulary for things of the modern industrialized world, European institutions and products, German was used to fill this gap: Kaika - emperor, keke - cheese or helekoko - duke, and so on. | ||
The oddest words however, making up roughly 1% of the vocabulary, are those for which there is no canonical etymology. Almost all of them belong to everyday life and basic vocabulary, which leads researchers to believe that they are inherited rather than borrowed. Though some think these words are vestiges of an unknown extinct tongue, more and more linguists argue they are indeed remnants of Indo-European vocabulary only preserved in Nepokian: hikaio - lightning, puna - bosom or 'aluwi - together, and so on. Moreover, Indo-Uralists and Nostraticists ascribe this part of vocabulary successfully to Indo-Uralic and Nostratic roots, respectively. They see these Nepokian words and Nepokian in general as a missing link between Proto-Indo-European and its antecedent(s). | The oddest words however, making up roughly 1% of the vocabulary, are those for which there is no canonical etymology. Almost all of them belong to everyday life and basic vocabulary, which leads researchers to believe that they are inherited rather than borrowed. Though some think these words are vestiges of an unknown extinct tongue, more and more linguists argue they are indeed remnants of Indo-European vocabulary only preserved in Nepokian: hikaio - lightning, puna - bosom or 'aluwi - together, and so on. Moreover, Indo-Uralists and Nostraticists ascribe this part of vocabulary successfully to Indo-Uralic and Nostratic roots, respectively. They see these Nepokian words and Nepokian in general as a missing link between Proto-Indo-European and its antecedent(s). | ||
Overall, the percentage of inherited vocabulary is very high. Roughly 80 to 90 percent of all known words | Overall, the percentage of inherited vocabulary is very high. Roughly 80 to 90 percent of all known words are directly inherited from Proto-Indo-European. The percentage depends on 1. whether Nostratic or Indo-Uralic words unattested in other IE languages are seen as inherited words and 2. which proper nouns are counted as Nepokian. Polynesian and German words make up around 5% each, and Chinese 1%. | ||
[[Category:Indo-European languages]] | [[Category:Indo-European languages]] | ||