Re: Afroasiatic, Eurasiatic, etc. (was Re: Japanese from Tungus)

From:    <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
> > Actually, John Colarusso (certainly no Nostraticist) thinks that
> > Indo-European and Northwest Caucasian, though not Northeast
> > Caucasian, might be related to Indo-European, and he has come up
> > with a number of cognates and sound change, including the word
> > for "horse".
>
> I have heard of that.  However, to me the NWC languages look very
> dissimilar to IE.  There are perhaps some phonological similarities,
> but that reeks of areal or substratum influence.
But the modern languages need not look very similar to be related.
Afterall, Armenian and Arapaho were not recognized until very late
as Indo-European and Algonquian, respectively, primarily because
they both underwent a large number of phonological changes at one
point.  What matters, as far as conservatives are concerned, is
primarily lautgesetze, although as I have stated that's not the
only criterion.

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Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637