The Index Diachronica

[bradrn]

Something I’ve just realised could be problematic… what of copyright? Is it permitted to compile published sound changes publicly like we’re doing, or would that run into legal issues?

[linguistcat]

Something I’ve just realised could be problematic… what of copyright? Is it permitted to compile published sound changes publicly like we’re doing, or would that run into legal issues?

I don't think sound changes can be copyrighted; It's more like a fact than a creative work or part thereof. And even if they could be, I believe this would be fair use, as long as we cite our sources.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I would also imagine this would be fair use as long as the source is cited.

[Emily]

Something I’ve just realised could be problematic… what of copyright? Is it permitted to compile published sound changes publicly like we’re doing, or would that run into legal issues?

legally i think this would fall more into the "phone book" category—data and ideas can't be copyrighted, only the fixed form they're in—and at any rate there's zero chance anyone would care

[Emily]

Actually, that reminds me — I’ve been meaning to make a mockup of the web interface for the Middle English sound changes, those being the only ones which are anything like complete at the moment. It’s escaped my attention due to my being utterly swamped with other work at the moment, but hopefully I’ll get around to it sometime in the next month or two.

…and, as promised, here’s the mockup: http://bradrn.com/files/english-mockup.html. Hopefully this should give some idea of the direction I want to go with this project: a nice website with sound changes which are (a) detailed and (b) reliable, at least to the extent that available data allow. And when the data don’t allow that, it should be explicitly indicated as opposed to ignored, which is what the current ID does and everyone agrees is unsatisfactory.

i think this looks fantastic! my one suggestion would be to add a date range for the period in question (not dates for each and every sound change, which would basically be impossible, but rough start and end points) where available

[bradrn]

Actually, that reminds me — I’ve been meaning to make a mockup of the web interface for the Middle English sound changes, those being the only ones which are anything like complete at the moment. It’s escaped my attention due to my being utterly swamped with other work at the moment, but hopefully I’ll get around to it sometime in the next month or two.

…and, as promised, here’s the mockup: http://bradrn.com/files/english-mockup.html. Hopefully this should give some idea of the direction I want to go with this project: a nice website with sound changes which are (a) detailed and (b) reliable, at least to the extent that available data allow. And when the data don’t allow that, it should be explicitly indicated as opposed to ignored, which is what the current ID does and everyone agrees is unsatisfactory.

i think this looks fantastic! my one suggestion would be to add a date range for the period in question (not dates for each and every sound change, which would basically be impossible, but rough start and end points) where available

Interesting idea… not sure how practical or useful this would be, though; it’s very difficult to give a single start or end date for any language period. And the vast majority of languages worldwide can’t really be dated anyway. But we can certainly consider doing this!

[Man in Space]

This weekend, I would like to try to get my old Mac out of mothballs and see if I can move over all the linguistics papers I had on it.

[SquiDark]

This weekend, I would like to try to get my old Mac out of mothballs and see if I can move over all the linguistics papers I had on it.

Nice, I'm in Taiwan for this week, I think I will have time to do some proposal of changes for ID that I kinda put off for a few months.

[dhok]

Is work still occurring on this? It's been ages since I've posted here, but I just wrote a quick note on the Brassica thread and thought I'd stop by...

[bradrn]

Is work still occurring on this?

I wish. I’m still really enthusiastic, but at the moment it looks like we just don’t have the manpower or time to properly go through the literature. It all feels quite uncoordinated so far.

[Moose-tache]

I thought we were going to have some software that would allow anyone to upload sound changes and citations, and then have someone else review them for rigor or accuracy. I'd be happy to upload what I have or cross-reference what someone else wrote.

[bradrn]

I thought we were going to have some software that would allow anyone to upload sound changes and citations, and then have someone else review them for rigor or accuracy. I'd be happy to upload what I have or cross-reference what someone else wrote.

That’s my vision, at least. Unfortunately, at the moment it is but a vision.

But also, I suspect this is putting the cart before the horse. I’d prefer to have some well-worked-out sound changes first — any forum will do for sharing them. Then, once we have people actively involved, we can write the software to make the whole thing more accessible. (Also, this way, we’d have a better idea of what our requirements would be, and the resulting software would be much better.)

[Man in Space]

OK. Let’s pick a family (preferably not IE, something more manageable) and work with it. Maybe we could do Japonic—I have a copy of Baker’s paper on Ryukyuan from ‘83 somewhere around here, and there’s bound to be information on Japanese historical phonology that isn’t too difficult to find.

[bradrn]

OK. Let’s pick a family (preferably not IE, something more manageable) and work with it. Maybe we could do Japonic—I have a copy of Baker’s paper on Ryukyuan from ‘83 somewhere around here, and there’s bound to be information on Japanese historical phonology that isn’t too difficult to find.

Very sensible.

Another thing to consider: we already have threads for Lakes Plain, Anglic, Austronesian, Na-Dene and Tungusic. Clearly, trying to do all of those at once was too much of a stretch, but we might as well pick one out of that list to focus on.

(Another option I’ve suggested is Polynesian: small, simple phonology, and well-described historical phonology. We’d need to make another thread for it, but that would be unproblematic.)

[Man in Space]

Another thing to consider: we already have threads for Lakes Plain, Anglic, Austronesian, Na-Dene and Tungusic. Clearly, trying to do all of those at once was too much of a stretch, but we might as well pick one out of that list to focus on.

(Another option I’ve suggested is Polynesian: small, simple phonology, and well-described historical phonology. We’d need to make another thread for it, but that would be unproblematic.)

I’d suggest that if we were to go with one of the options you named, Polynesian would be the best bet.

- Lakes Plain is, quite frankly, a muddled Bizarro land in its current state of scholarship (no shade meant to be thrown at Clouse et al., it’s just a much-less-than-ideal situation).
- Anglic as a unit is very scattershot. How fine-grained do we go into English dialectology? That aside, sure, there’s entire congressional libraries’ worth of English scholarship and some serious research into Scots, but beyond that, what is there? There’s precious little on Yola. (To say nothing of the whole Focurc debacle…)
- Austronesian…it’s probably my second choice of the ones you listed. I have one half of the big historical text whose name escapes me and probably a ton of papers on a computer that may not even boot anymore. Might be hard to pin down sources on some of the (especially smaller) families (ISTR Tsouic had a little bit on Wikipedia but not much and I don’t have institutional access to the scholarship).
- Na-Dené, sure, but then there’s the whole Dené-Yeniseian hypothesis that seems to have polarized people. (I also have a copy of the special publication that Vajda published his paper in.)
- Tungusic seems to be a hard one for me to find sources for. (Wasn’t Tangut Tungusic? That isn’t even fully deciphered IIRC?)

But as you said—Polynesian has a lot of scholarship on it (and importantly I think I may have some resources handy).

So my suggestion is either Japonic or Polynesian.

[bradrn]

- Anglic as a unit is very scattershot. How fine-grained do we go into English dialectology? That aside, sure, there’s entire congressional libraries’ worth of English scholarship and some serious research into Scots, but beyond that, what is there? There’s precious little on Yola. (To say nothing of the whole Focurc debacle…)

This was sort of the reason I suggested it. Anglic is small, and two out of its three documented languages are extremely well documented. But dialectology is difficult, as you note. (I’ve never heard of Focurc before, and it does indeed seem like a debacle.)

- Tungusic seems to be a hard one for me to find sources for. (Wasn’t Tangut Tungusic? That isn’t even fully deciphered IIRC?)

Tangut seems to have been rGyalrongic. You might be thinking of Khitan, which is possibly related to Mongolic. Or perhaps Manchu, which was Tungusic but didn’t use Chinese-inspired characters.

So my suggestion is either Japonic or Polynesian.

I think my preference here is for Polynesian. I just have a hunch it’ll be simpler and easier.

[Man in Space]

I think my preference here is for Polynesian. I just have a hunch it’ll be simpler and easier.

C is for cookie, and that’s good enough for me.

[bradrn]

I think my preference here is for Polynesian. I just have a hunch it’ll be simpler and easier.

C is for cookie, and that’s good enough for me.

I don’t get it…

[Man in Space]

I think my preference here is for Polynesian. I just have a hunch it’ll be simpler and easier.

C is for cookie, and that’s good enough for me.

I don’t get it…

I agree with your proposal, as I agree with you regarding its suitability.

[bradrn]

C is for cookie, and that’s good enough for me.

I don’t get it…

I agree with your proposal, as I agree with you regarding its suitability.

Fair enough. I’ll make a Polynesian thread now.

EDIT: done