Re:Unsound methodology (Score 2, Interesting)

You made many good insights in your post, and the fact that you have at least some familiarity with linguistics shows, which would make sense if you're indeed a professor of linguistics. :) I admit no such claim for myself but do readily confess an interest in the field which I plan to pursue through a SIL course as soon as finances permit. I wonder though if perhaps a comparative grammar would have more weight in a comparative study of linguistic origins rather than just the lexical origins of a language. The case you cite as an example is really it's own rebuttal, is it not? Perhaps I'm misguided (I am an amateur) but every source I've read, as well as the weight of history, seems to point to English having a root in the Germanic branch, yet the words you cite as examples are Latin. As a matter of fact, a vast number of english nouns are borrowed either from Greek or Latin, as a light familiarity with either language would bear out to an english speaker. I've also noted a number of english or latin words were borrowed into Russian when I spent some time familiarizing myself with it last year.

I wonder, are verb forms less likely to be borrowed from outside languages? I haven't noticed as many verbs being borrowed as I have nouns, but perhaps that depends on the context of the borrowing language, and the way they structure their sentences?

*shrugs in ignorance* blah di dah. :)