Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc. (was Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?)

On Aug 18, 2008, at 1:10 PM, Mark J. Reed wrote:

> Found this interesting paper:
>
> http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp019_peking_beijing.pdf
>
> ...which, along with tracing the pronunciation of the name of the city
> in question across time and space, suggests that the first syllable of
> said name is cognate with English "back".  Actually, it does more than
> suggest it:
>
> "There can be no question that English 'back' and Chinese 'bak' are
> derived from the same etymon."
>
> It then lists a collection of cognates that, as far as I can tell,
> succeeds in demonstrating that English "back" is in fact of Germanic
> origin rather than an English innovation.  What that has to do with
> its relation to Chinese, I don't know.
>
> My wingnut sense is tingling...
I just found that paper today, through Language Log! As someone else
said, Victor Mair is the editor of it, and a contributor to LL.
AFAICT the whole journal is available online at < http://www.sino-
platonic.org/ >. There are several papers which deal with Indo-
European<->Sinitic relations there that I look forward to reading.

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