More ancient language stuff.

I really do feel like over the past few years I've figured out a few wedge issues, that have really just pried open all this okay-accurate but uncritically traditionalistic stuff that has actually been sleeper issues holding the field back, with the one ancient language that I've been studying intensively for the past few number of years.

Like, I'm increasingly realizing that this major part of the language that everyone says is one thing because of this one major semi-deified scholar from the 20th century, all of that is actually probably several different things that historically got merged together, including some stuff that patterns with stuff in some famous languages from another family-branch.

I'm also realizing that some orthographic and language instructional stuff goes back a fuck-ton of time to early indigenous language instruction, and you can draw a straight line on some less-than-ideal presentational stuff from all of that then to major scholars now who are considered the el primo experts at the el primo universities.

That's on top of how some stuff I figured out makes estimates of chronological development that recognized experts have put on paper multiple times off by something like a millennium (!).

If you even straightforwardly said any of this in pithy one sentence summaries, you'd be ejected from polite society, even though you'd be stating things drily and crisply and you'd be entirely correct and entirely justified within an intellectual world actually devoted to rational ideals.

But, in reality, even if you buried these points as minor asides, you'd have other scholars steering clear of you, since you're right but you're questioning what "powerful" people have said and so it's better for their careers to not engage.

It really is astonishing to me how many of the "best" experts out there now have been made to look like shit, by projects I'm doing. I mean, I listen to them and cite what's good and they do have good things that they're saying, but it really is just astonishing. Like, at this point, it would be easier for me to list who I **haven't** made look like shit (yet).