I guess it all depends on how you look at what's important.

I did want to clarify one thing though.. I didn't say, really that what you stated was controversial... just that I view it in a different way.

Language evolution is very complex, but I don't think it's at all controversial to note that Norse and English are far more closely related than Etruscan (which isn't an Italic language) and Italian (or Latin).

Except that Norse and English diverged many times (1) north vs west germanic, (2) West Germanic to old norse (3) North Germanic to old english, (4) old norse to old norwegian, (5) Old english to middle english, and so on, to whatever end result/language you end up with, VS (1) Etruscan from Italic, (2) Italic - Lhatzo, (3) Lhatzo - Latin.

It's nearer, even though it's heading in a different direction.

If I head south from Richmond VA to Chesterfield, from chesterfield to petersburg, and petersburg to dinwiddle, I'm *still* closer (even though I'm moving the opposite direction) to Hanover, than my cousin, who headed down that road... if she went richmond to hanover to bowling green, to bel alton maryland, to st charles to waldorf.

I'm speaking more in degrees of separation than anything.

You can see this in a practical way by looking at the root words of... idk ... warning labels on packaging. I don't understand any of the German because the words and patterns are so very foreign. I can *almost* understand, if not the message, at least the basic meaning, of the same message written in spanish, because most of the words have a *similar* root.

(The kind of thing that everyone who tries to "fake" knowing a language will add to every word, lol)

"Me go to you "house-o"." As ridiculous as it sounds when people mess up like that, it does have a basis. Spanish/english have a lot of cognates.

like...



Delicious

Delicioso


OR Words that are spelled *exactly the same*, like Animal, or hospital

Tons more, and lots of rules here

I think that kind of proves that with languages it's more about degrees of seperation, than linear progression


Then again, as I said, I'm not a linguist... don't even speak any foreign languages, except my own conlangs