Minhast/Dialectology: Difference between revisions

In his seminal work, ''Minhast: A Diachronic and Theoretical Study of a North Pacific Paleosiberian Language'', Dr. Tashunka remarked, "The traditional division of the Minhast dialects depicts a simple phylogeny.  With the exception of the Salmonic dialects, which diverged from a common dialect after the Salmon Speaker-Horse Speaker War of 1472, no additional forks extend beyond each of the two main branches: each dialect within each branch is a sibling of each other.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The current classification scheme does not account for the the discrepancies of the Gull Speaker data from that of the of the other Lower Minhast dialects with which it is grouped.  The Horse Speaker data show that the dialect is much more conservative than has been previously thought, in some ways more so than the Salmonic dialects.  Justification for placing the Elk and Seal Speaker dialects under the Upper Minhast branch lacks supporting data; although the Elk and Seal Speaker dialects are said to be more conservative than the dialects grouped under the traditional Lower Minhast dialects, the data indicate if anything that this characterization is at best overstated.  Moreover, the evidence indicates that Classical Minhast, as it shares more in common with the dialects that have been traditionally classified as Upper Minhast, is not the ancestor of the Minhast dialects, but instead is an archaic dialect that diverged from one of the sub-branches of the northern dialects.  Specifically, Classical Minhast shares more features with the Salmonic and Plateau dialects than with the other dialects; extreme conservatism by the Salmonic and Horse Speaker dialects cannot explain why they share these features with the classical language while all the other dialects do not exhibit at any point in time in their written history that they ever had these features.  Only a close relationship, within a shared dialectal grouping, could account for these discrepencies. Rather than attempting to account for both the extinct and new dialects, the traditional classification scheme conveniently ignores them.  Clearly, the evidence indicates a more complex picture of the Minhast dialects, but the current system is based on biased sources ultimately derived from both Minhast literary tradition and historical regional politics: twelve pre-eminent Speakers, thus twelve dialects." ¹ To address these issues, Dr. Tashunka has proposed a new phylogenetic tree ''(dashes indicate conjectural relationships)'':

                                     |label2=''Salmonic''  ²

                             |1=Classical Minhast ³

                       |1=Modern Standard Minhast ⁴

             |1=Stone Speaker ⁵

The reclassification of Classical Minhast has received especially scathing criticism from native Minhast grammarians and linguists.  Dr. Tashunka proposed in another paper, "On the Position of Classical Minhast and the Modern Languages", that Classical Minhast was actually a prestige dialect spoken by another nomadic northern Minhast tribe, similar in lifestyle and social structure to today's modern Horse Speakers.  He argues that this northern Minhast tribe, like the Horse Speakers, were extremely warlike and at one time may have united all of the Minhast groups under their rule, essentially forming a tribal empire.  As a result, the speech of this northern tribe became a prestige dialect throughout all the Minhast groups.

There are two sources that suggest that a powerful tribe did gain political and military ascendancy in ancient Minhay.  One is from the ''Anyaddaddaram'' (The Epic of Anyar), passed orally from generation to generation before finally being written down in Classical Minhast in the indigenous poetic genre known as the ''seksarambāt''.  With close to 40,000 words, the epic tells of a young man named Anyar who fled the army of an invading empire and convinced all of the Minhast tribes to unite and drive away the invader.  Anyar then gathers a large fleet and sets sail to attack the empire on its own soil.  The poem abruptly ends, ''"Annūyikmammā tamaššuhapmakikman"'', "And they set sail in pursuit of the enemy".  Another source comes from an outside nation, the Rajahnate of Kirmay.  An anonymous court historian wrote ''Dagitoy a Sursurat ti Amianan a Pag'arian'' (The Book of the Northern Kingdom), widely regarded as an ancient treatise about the Empire of Yamato.  However, various passages suggest that the kingdom in question was not Japan, as illustrated by the following passage: ''Dagiti kawes dagiti tatta'u dutdút a nalamúyut gapú ta ti ul'ulida nakalalam'ek, ket ti danúm nagbalbalin kasta ti batú. Ngem no agawid idiay balbalayda, napudút ta isúda dutdút a nalamúyut met'', "The men wore fur because their homeland was cold, the water becoming hard as stone; but after returning home, their houses were warm, for they too were of fur".  This passage is especially peculiar: unless the author was referring to Ainu enclaves in the island of Honshu in northern Japan, no native Japanese home is constructed out of fur.  However, neither of these sources is sufficient to prove that it was a northern tribe that conquered the other Minhast tribes and spoke a dialect that would later spread and become Classical Minhast.

<small>¹ Dr. Tashunka also notes that Minhast numerology plays an important role: the number 12 is a fortuitous number, portending good fortune. </small>

<small>² We have an exact date when the Salmonic sub-branch split into the Salmon and Wolf Speaker dialects: The Salmon Speaker - Horse Speaker War of 1472</small>

<small>³ Notice that Classical Minhast has moved from its basal position, as depicted in traditional phylogenies, to the Highland sub-branch of the Northern dialect branch.  Old Minhast now occupies the basal position, making the tree consistent with the hypothesis that the Stone Speaker branch is a separate language.

</small>

<small>⁴ Modern Standard Minhast, although created as a "compromise" dialect with elements from both Upper and Lower Minhast dialects, nevertheless has a grammar that is mostly from Upper Minhast sources.</small>

<small>⁵ Many Minhastic linguists, including Dr. Tashunka, argue that the Stone Speaker dialect should be reclassified as an independent language, based on how divergent it is from the other dialects.  See discussion above.