Names of places in Croatia

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I think the distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sciences is a false one. It’s a traditional nomenclature, nothing more.

Boru

I think it is undeniable that historical phonology is a harder science than etymology is. When doing etymology, you almost always assume that laws of historical phonology are correct. The fact that Latin 's' corresponds to Greek 'h' at the beginning of a word is way more certain than any single etymology that bases itself on it: sex-hex (both meaning six), septem-hepta (both meaning seven), sal-hals (both meaning salt), sol-helios (both meaning sun), sus-hys (both meaning pig, the rare English word swine is from the same root), super-hyper (both meaning above), similis-homoios (both meaning similar), sollus-holos (both meaning whole), silva-hyle (both meaning wood), somnium-hypnos (both meaning sleep), sanguis-haima (both meaning blood), sudor-hidros (both meaning sweat), suavis-hedys (both meaning sweet)... You can be way more certain that Latin 's' corresponds to Greek 'h' at the beginning of the word than that, for example, "sanguis" and "haima" share the same root.
And I think phonetics is an even harder science than historical phonology, because phonetics is not dependent on the relatively vague concept of meaning. There are sound waves, there are their discrete Fourier transformations so that you can see which frequencies are present in that sound wave... There is very little room for subjectivity in phonetics.

That’s nice.

Boru