Re: Old Japanese

Again, concerning Starling...

On Thu, 9 Nov 2000 13:19:51 -0500 Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...> writes:
> OTOH the updated COMPLETE etymological database for Altaic (By
> Starostin-Dybo-Mudrak)is available on the same site:
> http://starling.rinet.ru/intrtext.htm -> etymological databases ->
> Altaic
>
> A lot of Old Japanese material. Unfortunately, the table of sound
> correspondencies between Japanese & Altaic is not available from the
> site. Really a pity since there are peculiar things with the sound
> evolution (like the famous b > w, d > y changes).
You can find a sound correspondence chart for Altaic in the Starling
program, which is currently ported only for MS-DOS (Sergei told me some
time ago he's got a Windows version in the works; it takes a while to
Windowize a DOS program). Only thing is you have to download several
large files: first the Starling program itself, then the necessary fonts
and utilities, then the Altaic database. Pain in the butt if you don't
have a good fast modem and a lot of free time.

I'll post his Proto-Altaic phonemes (I modified some symbols):

Consonants
p' p  b  m
t' t  d  n  r  l  s  z
c' c  j  n  r' l' sh y
k' k  g  ng
All but z and y have initial and medial correspondences.

Vowels
i u yu
e o yo
  a ya
These are divided according to second root vowel: a-e-i-o-u.

DaW.