Parallels To Natural Languages
Russian historian Alexander Nemirovski identified an ergative suffix: in durbatuluk, the suffix –tuluk means "them all", relating to the verb's object rather than to its subject. Verb forms related to object are specific to ergative languages. Nemirovski claimed a "strong lexical similarity" to Hurrian (also an ergative language), which had recently been deciphered at the time of the writing of The Lord of the Rings, E. A. Speiser's Introduction to Hurrian appearing in 1941.
Read more about this topic: Black Speech
Famous quotes containing the words parallels, natural and/or languages:
“If, while watching the sun set on a used-car lot in Los Angeles, you are struck by the parallels between this image and the inevitable fate of humanity, do not, under any circumstances, write it down.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“The trenchant editorials plus the keen rivalry natural to extremely partisan papers made it necessary for the editors to be expert pugilists and duelists as well as journalists. An editor made no assertion that he could not defend with fists or firearms.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding.”
—Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1934)