Relations To Other Language Families
Elamite is regarded by the vast majority of linguists as a language isolate and has no close relation to the neighbouring Semitic languages, Indo-European languages or to Sumerian (a fellow isolate), even though it adopted the Sumerian-Akkadian cuneiform script. A minority of linguists have attempted to link Elamite with other language groups; David McAlpin proposed an Elamo-Dravidian family with the Dravidian languages of India, Vaclav Blazek proposed a relation with Semitic languages of the Near East, and George Starostin published lexicostatistics finding Elamite to be approximately equidistant from Nostratic and Semitic but more distant from Sino-Caucasian.
Read more about this topic: Elamite Language
Famous quotes containing the words relations, language and/or families:
“Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I now thinke, Love is rather deafe, than blind,
For else it could not be,
That she,
Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
And cast my love behind:
I’m sure my language to her, was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence, of as subtile feet,
As hath the youngest Hee,”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“We urgently need a debate about the best ways of supporting families in modern America, without blinders that prevent us from seeing the full extent of dependence and interdependence in American life. As long as we pretend that only poor or abnormal families need outside assistance, we will shortchange poor families, overcompensate rich ones, and fail to come up with effective policies for helping families in the middle.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)