Re: Old Languages w/ new thread

Quoting Jesse Bangs <jaspax@...>:

> BTW, I've been gone for about a week and a half due to stupidities
> with UPS that kept my computer in transit from Colorado to Seattle a lot
> longer than it needed to be.
Tell me about it.  The UPS people destroyed my stereo system,
nearly destroyed my monitor, and seem to have made the keyboard
to the computer unusable (it was at least working before and is not
now).  And they were only insured for $100 per box! Sheesh.

> In the meantime, I have an unrelated
> question that's been bugging me--are there any languages or language
> families unrelated to the Semitic languages that have tri- or
> bi-consonantal root structure?
FWIW, I seem to remember hearing a discussion about linguistic
typology and historical linguistics in which it was stated
that if certain language families had been inexplicably
obliterated through assimilation, genocide, famine or whatever,
we would never have known that some language features existed.
The two examples given were the Khoisan languages of southern
Africa, famous for their clicks, and the Semitic languages,
famous for their weird multiconsonantal roots.

==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>

"If a man demands justice, not merely as an abstract concept,
but in setting up the life of a society, and if he holds, further,
that within that society (however defined) all men have equal rights,
then the odds are that his views, sooner rather than later, are going
to set something or someone on fire." Peter Green, in _From Alexander
to Actium_, on Spartan king Cleomenes III