I take issue with Palin’s (2008) issue with Küçük’s (2008) issue, and I take issue with Küçük’s (2008) issue itself.

The issue is not language contact, as Küçük claims, adducing spurious volitional traits to the speakers of the languages in her data set (“desirably dissembling and dishonest double-dealing deceit”, really!! As if aleatory allegorical alliteration allowed allaying of intellectual illiteracy). The issue is not cultural either. Palin adds insult (to his readers’ gray matter) to injury (to cultural studies across the board) by collocating the phrase “genetic inheritance” with “languages”, when any self-respecting linguist knows that genetic inheritance collocates with living matter, not cultural tools.

Neither author has apparently imbibed Hannah Pullup-Scox’s (1991) sobering caveat about frivolous analytical endeavours. The editors of Speculative Grammarian might also benefit from her periodical retreats on the subject of refereeing manuscript submissions (Pullup-Scox 2002), if the standard of this publication is to remain at its current level.

I must nevertheless credit Küçük and Palin with one sensible observation each which, together, unravel their false two-pronged mystery. Namely, that there is a commonality, which is the name of the languages, and that there is a correlation, between the language name and the number of its speakers, respectively.

But the issue is etymology, of course, as an attentive reading of the Rosita Bone scripts immediately reveals (see M.Adam, ongoing), and the key to it is Boobboob, a sacred language once used in Tlqpopopqlt (to the west of present-day Tegucigalpa). On the etymology of the name of this language itself, the Rosita Bone enticingly suggests that the attire the scribes the matriarchal ruler hand-picked wore consisted of strictly hierarchical multi-layered center-embedded double-breasted robes.

The Boobboob ancestry of all languages in Küçük’s data set can be traced along the whole of Rosita’s exquisite high-relief. A simple reordering of Küçük’s original table reveals the generalisation holding between the root of the language name and the current number of its speakers:

Language       No. of Speakers Erre 1 Mutum 400 Ere 1,030 Mum 3,286 Manam 7,000 E 30,000 Mam 500,000 Malayalam 35,000,000

Erre. Root meaning: ‘mistake’. Clearly no one wants to insist on speaking a language with such a name, and so all of its speakers but that last stubborn mule have sensibly cut off their ties with this language.

Mutum. Root meaning: ‘mute’. If your language says you must be mute, you obviously comply and progressively become so in it.

Ere. Root meaning: ‘before’. This is a has-been language, one whose antiquated features can no longer serve today’s communicative needs. You can’t, for example, SMS or TXT in Ere, or even send an SOS in it.

Mum. Root meaning: ‘silent’. That is, speakers of this language should hold their tongue.

Manam. Roots: mana ‘food’ (sometimes erroneously spelt manna) and m ‘the sound of thought’ (sometimes also spelt hmm). Accordingly, Manam is exclusively used to mull over the language itself, an activity which seriously impairs intellectual acuity and hence the chances of discerning, healthy procreation.

E. Root meaning: ‘out of’. E, as its name indicates, is an outgoing language, as are its garrulous speakers. E is currently undergoing a breathtaking boom worldwide, denoted by the increasing use of its name as a prefix: E-language, E-mail, E-business, E-scam, and even E-E, its hypertext version. Note that its formerly thriving sister, I-language, is now officially passée (i.e. has passed away, for those readers who don’t understand Swedish) because it was, in stark contrast, an inward-bound kind of language.

Mam. Contracted form of Ma’am, a root meaning ‘respect for ladies’. As is well-known, the degree of civilisation attained by a community is gauged by the way they treat their females. A language which enshrines this tenet in its name cannot but strive to grow and spread.

Malayalam. Arguably the most interesting etymological example in Küçük’s data set. The root ‘mal’ means ‘evil’ and this was actually the original name of the language. As its speakers became highly educated across the board, they developed both a boustrophedal ability (resulting in the free variants ‘Mal’ and ‘Lam’ for this name, later juxtaposed into a transitional form ‘Mallam’) and a dismissive, rational attitude toward essentialist word meanings, encapsulated in the infix -aya- (itself once a free form, ayah, meaning precisely ‘to nurture sensibly’, whose expletive function is still found throughout Asia as ayoh!). The current name of this language can even felicitously translate into English as Eviltutlive, with similar expletive infixation and similarly expressed desire for a life free from ominous thoughts.

To conclude, the twin empirical generalisations emerging from the data are that the names become the languages (in the two senses of ‘become’) and that their speakers dwindle or thrive accordingly. Incidentally, the same etymological insight (though non-Proto-Boobboob, naturally) holds for the grossly overpopulated current global languages:

Engl-Ish. Root meanings: ‘angel-like’.
Man-Darin. Root meanings: ‘brave hominin’.
Spa-Nish. Root meanings: ‘which carved itself a central niche, embedded in bodily indulgence’.

References

M.Adam, E. (ongoing). What’s in a name: Rosita Bone, Rosita Bonita or just a pretty face?

Pullup-Scox, H. (1991). Embedding Claims in False Centers: An Elihphile’s Guide to the Fallacy. APA, APA ITU? Self-Teaching Series, Batam.

Pullup-Scox, H. (2002). ‘LoL Publication Etiquette’. Linguists on Language—Open Seminars Brochure, Tunococ-Klim Paintball Center, Samahab.

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	I Told You it was Not the Whole (Number) Story—An Anthropological Linguistic Followup on Non-Integral Person in Åriðmatçəl Verbs—Claude Searsplainpockets & Helga von Helganschtein y Searsplainpockets
	SpecGram Vol CLIV, No 2 Contents