Re: Evidence for Nostratic? (was Re: Proto-Uralic?)

Quoting Joe <joe@...>:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andreas Johansson" <andjo@...>
>
> > Quoting Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>:
> >
> > > En réponse à John Cowan :
> > >
> > >
> > > >It's not 100% clear that dent- originally meant "tooth".  Its formal
> > > >English equivalent "tine" (< ME "tind", as in JRRT's "Tindrock") means
> > > >"sharp projection", as on a fork, and has no connection with eating.
> > >
> > > For what is worth, in French such a thing is called "dent", meaning
> > > definitely "tooth", which for me is no different from talking about the
> > > "foot" of a mountain.
> >
> > Swedish forks have _tänder_, which word normally means "teeth".
>
> I assume that's cognate with 'teeth', though.  Remember English, Low German,
> Dutch and Frisian all lost proto-Germanic *n before Fricatives.  And I think
> in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish there was a *þ>d shift.
Um, well, I'm not the historical linguist here. Initially, English /T/
corresponds to Swedish /t/, eg _ting_ "thing", whereas German _Ding_ indeed
have a /d/ - might this be what your thinking of? But I don't know if that
holds in other positions.

The singular _tand_ looks so much like Latin _dent-_ that I've always assumed
they're cognate.

                                                            Andreas