In this paper, I intend to introduce the Cork Dry Conundrum to the reader, and to consider the evidence presented by various commentators, on the origins of the Jynnan Tonnyx Sprachbund - the most one of the controversial aspects of the "lan  gauge". It will be shown that Wally Labov's Language and High-Society paradigm sheds some light on the matter, Nim Chimpsky's chatter allows further insight, though purely while viewed from a social perspective, while structural and historical linguistics allow the exclusion of more traditional explanations of this phenomenon.

Sir William Jones noted, in 1786, in his Third anniversary discourse on the Hindus the basic assumptions of what has become Historical and Comparative linguistics. He clearly accounts for similarities which can not be attributed to chance, by the assumption that they are the result of decendancy from a common ancestor:
 

What can we, as linguists make of this fact? It exists in total isolation. As far as any theory of structural linguistics is concerned it is right off the graph, and yet it persists. Old structural linguists get very angry when young structural linguists go on about it. Young structural linguists get deeply excited about it and stay up late at night convinced that they are very close to something of profound importance, and end up becoming old structural linguists before their time, getting angry with the young ones. Structural linguistics, according to Adams (1980) is a bitterly divided and unhappy discipline, and a large number of its practitioners spend too many nights drowning their problems in Ouisghian Zodahs.

Any given pair of languages, by the laws of chance, are likely to provide us with pairs of words which are both homophonous and semantically linked. For instance, English and modern Persian both have a word [bad] "bad", with identical pronunciation and meaning. Alubhian, a Wartovian language on Alpha Centauri (Qrawsty 1992: passim), and Guaranì, an Amerindian language in Paraguay, both have a word [aka'demik] meaning "a person so boring that you would probably chew your own leg off in order to escape his or her presence". Similarly, Old Church Slavonic and Totalcrapp, a language used on the first Tuesday of every month by the Clangers, a little known race living on the Dark Side of the Moon (Meoff: 1987), share the word [ju:niversiti:] meaning "a place where young people gather for the purpose of becoming intoxicated". Also worthy of mention, is the segment [lingwist], which in both Faroese, a Northern Germanic language, and Diola Fogny, a West African language has the meaning "a lush who comes up with implausible theories" (Simpson: 1969).

In all of the above cited cases, our knowledge of the earlier histories of these languages makes it certain that the similarities do not reflect anything more than mere chance. Similarities, and correspondences, of this sort are easily eliminated by the requirement that they be not limited to a few lexical items, but rather recur in a fairly large set of other linguistic items.

The chance of unrelated vocabulary items being similar is especially great in the area of onomatopoeia, as outlined by Kumon Aiwannalaya, in his seminal work on sexual taboo in Hawaiian languages. He provides us with a convincing account of the possibility of languages independently creating, or recreating, phonetically similar expressions for similar noises in "the real world". E.g. contrast Finnish [kukku kiekuu] with Russian [kukarekú], meaning "the sound of a cock crowing", or Hawaiian [hjas'] with Provençal [hjes], meaning "the sound your neighbour's dog makes while vomiting on your grandmother's leg". The jynnan tonnyx class of words hardly seems to fit into this category.

The situation is similar, as regard vocabulary items such as English dad(dy), Italian papa , and Hindi bap. The structure, segmental inventory and often also the connotations of these words, suggest that they come from baby talk, namely the utterances first articulated by babbling infants, which have been assigned meaning by adults. Like other lexical items in this category, these words exhibit syllabic reduplication; the jynnan tonnyx class words are somewhat outside the syllabic scope, not to mention the spending power, of the average infant.

Due to the much greater chance of similarities among onomatopoeic words and words derived from baby talk varieties, such possibilities are seen as being unreliable evidence in attempts to establish genetic relationships. Similarities due to linguistic contact are also ruled out in the case of the Cork Dry Conundrum, as Adams (1980:138) notes that the drinks in question were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds. This fact, coupled with a total lack of shared aberrances, recurrent correspondences, and an inability to assign any internally reconstructed proto-forms to phyla that are in keeping with the Principle of Realism in Reconstruction, lead the linguist to conclude that no genetic connection can be made between any of the languages in the Jynnan Tonnyx Sprachbund.

Angry Nim Chimpsky shines shoes outside the structural linguistics department of a certain Institute of Technology in New England (it should be noted that he is angry because of his reputation with the girls for competence, and more particularly, for performance, was shown to be a pseudo-political propaganda fabrication, as it was totally lacking in any social aspect - unfortunately, an all to common practice when locked up all alone in an ivory tower); it is not, perhaps, surprising that said Institute of Technology was never accepted into the D.I.T. due to its lack of cunning, after all, all linguists know that the best way to raise money for a new speech synthesiser is to go out drinking gin and tonics with members of high-society.

And here we find the beginnings of a new paradigm which will explain the  mysteries of the Jynnan Tonnyx Sprachbund. This new paradigm, pioneered by Wally Labov, is known as Language and High-Society. The basic principle is simple: go out drinking with members of high-society and get them absolutely rat-arsed; it is taken for granted that one form or another of language is used while this is going on. Then, after a period of time has elapsed, observations being made all along, the observer should get the subject a particularly strong gin and tonic, and to sign a whopping great cheque made out to that famous personality, Cash. Labov referred to this as CS, or Cashual Style.

He, however, points out the essential problem associated with this method of sociolinguistic research: the observer's paradox (See Labov 1972: 209). This term indicates the problem of getting money for a new speech synthesiser from a member of high society, without letting them know that a hefty proportion is to be siphoned off into the linguistics departments (s)lush fund for Ouisghian Zodahs. A secondary problem exists with the observer's paradox: if any other member of high-society sees you ligging cash off one of their peers, they will immediately clam up, thus endangering the almost here-to-fore endless supply of Ouisghian Zodahs. Labov referred to this as MPS, or Minimal Poundage Style. Many other styles lie in-between these two styles, on a roughly linear scale from most relaxed speech to most formal reserved speech.

Labov is rather unpopular with Nim Chimpsky and other linguists of the competence and performance school at the moment, after it was rumoured that he had unwittingly defined "speech" in a forthcoming work, as "a dgeen-n-tunic like liquid"; of course his logic is to be applauded - there is no sense in collecting samples of speech unless there is a speech synthesiser, or oral cavity, with which to analyse these samples.

However, the reader may have begun to suspect the truth by now. Evidence is being uncovered of a conspiracy by linguists across the universe to promote the use of their own personal "speech-synthesisers", using the Language and High-Society paradigm, as a method of ligging giiin'ot nix, not to mention Ouisghian Zodahs. It has been revealed that Douglas Adams is to be called before the Beef Tribunal by the Gagrakackan Agricultural Department, for the invention of the "tzjin-anthony-ks" which can kill cows at a hundred paces, or at best, leave them totally mad.

In a private communication, Nim Chimpsky informed me that he believed that this tribunal was "just another one of Labov's enormous, and theoretically unsound, ligging techniques. Anyway, that old lush should be removed from society and locked up in an ivory tower to work privately on his own performance". Wally Labov responded to this by describing Nim Chimpsky as "a sad old political hack, who has forgotten what drinking... eh, I mean linguistics, is all about, that is collecting samples of speech and inputting them , er, well, eh, you're a linguist, like, you're in on the deal, you know what I mean, like, you know. What's it worth to ya, sonny? Fancy a drink? A Ph.D. maybe? Oh, fiddlesticks! Actually, I was mistaken. Upon mature recollection..."

However, there is absolutely no truth in the rumour that a number of linguists have been paid off to not blow the cover on a wonderful conspiracy. The real hard-core evidence collected for this paper has unfortunately been adjudged by the Beef Tribunal to be sub judice and, as such, the empirical integrity of this paper has not been undermined by certain elements of the linguistic and beef producing communities, and so I'm off to Maxim's for a swift half of Field Study with Felicity, and a good shoe shine; I eagerly await the report of the Tribunal, which no doubt will produce vast amounts of speech acts for analysis and concordance. Amen.
 

References:

Aiwannalaya, Kumon [1999] The Onomatopoeia of sexual taboo - spoof or truth? Hawaii: University Press.

Hock, Hans Heinrich [1991] Principles of Historical Linguistics (2nd Ed.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Labov, William [1972] Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Jones, Sir William [1786] The third anniversary discourse, on the Hindu's. Asiatick Researches 1:422.

Meoff, Ger K. [1987] The Clangers of Button Moon and other Cute Furry Peoples. NASA Press: Cape Canaveral .

Qrawsty, Dee Klown [1992] Learn Alubhian in 6001 easy steps. (119th Ed.): Alpha Centauri: Pistaek Press.

Simpson, Bartholomew [1969] One thousand best Telephone Gags to Moe's Tavern.  Springfield: Mat Groening Press.

If you have comments or suggestions, e-mail me at ciaran@mindless.com

All resemblances to characters, personalities and linguists, fictional or otherwise, are purely co-incidental and no offence is intended, honest!