Hello World

So, this now is the first entry. Some words about myself: My name is Christian Chiarcos, I am a linguist and a computer scientist, and I have worked in Computational Linguistics. This blog, however, will not be concerned with my work, but rather with the interests that long ago led me to choose my profession: an interest in language evolution, comparative mythology, history and archeology. I intend this to be a private blog, but if anyone is interested to use this as a platform for discussions, please feel welcome.

I guess, my primary interest in languages actually arose out of my interest in folk tales and history --  these may have been imprinted on me by my parents, or maybe they evolved out of the curiosity of where my ancestors actually came from (you may have a guess, based on the surname - you will almost certainly be wrong). When I was a child of maybe 10-12 years, I made the fascinating discovery that researchers were able to reconstruct long-forgotten languages, and that they could use this knowledge to draw conclusions about the material and spiritual culture of our ancestors, about their physical environment, their history and their origins. In this sense, language is a door to the past and to the mind, and to understand its regularities allows us to achieve a better understanding of humanity itself. Years ago, I tried to convey this impression to a friend, and when I described to him the principles of internal reconstruction, he came up with the very nice metaphor of "archeology in language". I guess, this describes precisely what fascinated me in linguistics in the first place.

In the meantime, I am a bit desillusionised. I understand the methodology to reconstruct languages like Proto-Indoeuropean (and its limits), I learnt that these reconstructions are somewhat imprecise and that most attempts to achieve a better understanding of the past on linguistic grounds (you may think of Gamkrelidze's argumentation for an Indoeuropean "Urheimat" in Anatolia, or Vennemann's theses of Basque and Semitic substrata in Western Europe) often receive little support from the archeological record, indicating their inherently speculative nature. But the fascination remained, and the amount of information available as well as the lack of agreement with respect to its interpretation may actually have increased it: It's a puzzle at a gigantic scale.

If not single words, but complete stories (be it myths or fairy tales) are taken into consideration, things get actually more complicated, and thus, more fascinating. However, unfortunately, things also get more fuzzy ... But comparing traditions of unrelated cultures (say, the Maya and Ancient Egypt) allows us to identify what could be termed "cultural universal" (a more biological term would be "convergent evolution"), and comparing traditions of related cultures (say, fairy tales of different European peoples) allows the identification of common traits that may share the same origin (the "comparative method" in linguistics). The interesting point here is that both aspects, taken together, allow us to extrapolate what cultural concepts, what mythology, and what religious practices may have dominated a particular culture at a given point in time. In this way, one may not only be able to explain what people may have thought at a particular point, but also to verify to what extent the socio-economic situation determines the development of ideas, metaphors, and ideological systems. The latter point would actually be of practical relevance to understand our present way of thinking.

Since my days in school, I used much of my spare time to read and to think about different of these issues, but as a pure layman, with a broad interest in history, archeology, comparative mythology and (a somewhat more professional interest in) linguistics. If time permits, I travel to interesting sights, I visit exhibitions, and I keep reading. And if there is a specifically interesting observation, or an idea crosses my mind that I consider relevant to be pursued further at a later point, this blog will be the place to keep it. Mostly for myself, but anyone interested is free to share his impressions and to contribute.

Most blog entries will be in German, but occasionally, an English one may slip in, it depends on the topic a bit, and it depends on the reception of this blog ;)