Re: THEORY: A possible Proto-World phonology

>From: Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn@...>
>Well, it looks to me as if the whole Nostratic hypothesis basically
>falls apart if IE and AA can't be related, since those are the two
>families where the most derivations by far have been adduced. For
>illustration, I'll quote a few etymologies from Illich-Svitych's "Opyt
>sravnenija Nostraticheskix jazykov", Part I (b-K'), as typed in by
>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal on the Nostratic list back in November 1997:
I was on the Nostratic list.  I left since it just up and died.  I'm on
cybalist now, and there of course has been lots of discussions of Nostratic
or at least pre-IE.

The whole reason I decided to investigate Nost. was because of the Tech
project.  Originally, I planned on Tech being Afro-Asiatic with
Indo-European elements.  In the real world, the likelihood of such a
language existing in eastern Africa is pretty remote, unless in an
alternative reality some early IE speakers migrated to Ethiopia, Kenya and
Somalia.

But my discovery of the Nostratic theory gave me a great idea.  I'd
incorporate all the distinctive features of all six member language families
and intentionally attempt to create as complex a language as possible.  My
discovery of North Caucasian (esp. Northwest Caucasian) gave me even more
ideas, but only for phonology.

I wanted to have insular Celtic mutations, Germanic umlaut, Semitic broken
plural formation and verb derivation, Kartvelian multipersonalism and
consonant-heavy nature, Dravidian dental-alveolar-retroflex distinction
(which is found only in Tech nasals and laterals).

And concerning IE and AA sound correspondences (and I forgot to mention that
the versions of Nostratic I've seen do have a system of sound
correspondences, though in the actual reconstructions there are a few
inconsistencies -- therefore, this is more than just Greenbergian
"whole-word" comparisons), I need to reread my Nostratic book, and I'll post
my findings at a later time.  Hopefully this evening.  Or sooner.

Oh yeah, and I'll check the Cybalist archives.  Glen Gordon's on that list
too; he's got a few ideas that may or may not be credible.  (He proposed a
stage intermediate of Nostratic and IE; he calls it Eusian, which I would
call "the real Eurasian".  It includes IE, Uralic, Aquitanian, Sumerian...)

Danny ¶¦¬þ
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