Re: Comparison of philosophical languages

On Tuesday 21 January 2003 11:32 am, Danny Wier wrote:
> From: "Isaac A. Penzev" <isaacp@...>
>
> > Mr. Nowicki, are you teachable?
> > Pan napisal:
> >
> > <<"Milk," "mother," "is," and a few other words sound similar
> > in all Indo-European languages. This seems to prove that
> > names of basic ideas do not change.>>
> >
> > Stupidity! "Milk" is |lapte| in Romanian, |pienas| in Lithuanian, |galá|
>
> in
>
> > Ancient Greek, |thut| in Romani -- what other proof ye seek? And common
> > origin of Ukrainian |je| and Lathvian |ir| (both mean "is") can be
> > evident only to a specialist!
>
> Interesting story behind the word "milk". The Indo-European root is *melg-,
> but if you believe in the Glottalic Theory, it's *melk'-. Russian |moloko|
> is an obvious cognate with English (but may be a loan from Germanic). Greek
>
> |amelgô| and Latin MULGERE mean "to milk", and Tocharian A had |malke| for
>
> "milk".
>
> But similar words can be found in a diverse array of languages (such as
> Semitic *mlg, Arabic |malaja| "to suck (the breast)" and Quechua |malq'a|
> "throat"). This has led Merritt Ruhlen, among others, to propose a common
> ancestor for ALL the world's languages, a Proto-World in fact. He came up
> with *maliq'a "to suck(le); nurse; breast" (q' being an ejective uvular, as
> in Georgian). I don't like the methodology, it's too Greenbergian and
> doesn't rely that strictly on regular sound correspondences. This word is
> probably onomatopoeic anyway. A Nostratic origin is VERY likely, however --
> Bomhard and Kerns have the extended root *mal-iq'- "to draw (out), to suck
> (out); to give suck, to suckle, to nurse", with cognates in Indo-European,
> Afro-Asiatic, Finno-Ugric, Dravidian and Eskimo.
Yes, but the probability of it actually staying phonologically similar over
20,000 years or so is very low.  I could draw an origin to this obsession
with 'ma' as a feminine marker of some kind, which seems to be common to
nearly all languages, and the obvious connection with breasts.

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