BLOOMFIELD ERRORS EXPLAINED
CAUTION: I am not a linguist. An academic, Algonquin linguist, who could have better explained Bloomfield's thoughts, chose to terminate communication when the Icelandic pronoun table provided evidence that Algonquin and Old Norse languages might be related.
Comment: Bloomfield in his book, Language, gives the reader a sense that he, and his fellow linguists, became overly focused on the exciting prospect of creating a prototype (root) language of the the Algonquins and they were also misled by a vocalization following isolated pronouns.
Bloomfield was an obvious advocate of the hypothesis that linguists could start with related words from several tribes and wordkbackward to find the true root word.
For Example: They took the word for moccasin from several Algonquin tribes and made a root word "*[maxkasini]." If the Norse words "maka sin" meaning, "pair, his" are considered the true root words, the prototype process added two unnecessary letters to the words. One of those letters is "x," which is rarely used in either Norse or Algonquin. The other, "i" obscures the reflexive pronoun "sin."
The common word "moccasin" comes closer to the root spelling than the "approved" prototype word. Some of the early translators had spelled "maka sin" almost correctly. One early translator used the word "maka" to refer to saw teeth. Thus, he provided evidence that "maka" meant something other than shoes. How Bloomfield, and others, missed the obvious "sin," a Norse reflexive pronoun that he cited in another section of the book is still a puzzle.
Because the linguists have not yet identified the Old Norse language as the Algonquin root language, the process of developing prototype languages has failed the test.
