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

At 16:32 10/07/03, you wrote:

> > > >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.

Indeed.  The English cognate is tooth, not tine, surely, with just this
loss of n!

Ian