Re: THEORY: A possible Proto-World phonology

Danny Wier wrote:
>And regarding the Nostratic theory in general: I do accept at least some of
>it, even to the point where I can call it a hypothesis instead of a theory,
>for these reasons, expressed in these parallels:>
(snip the 10 interesting points of evidence)

>So Nostratic is a semi-educated guess concerning the "missing link" of
>language evolution.  At least it has evidence to back it up.  I've
>investigated reconstructions (25 from Ilich-Svitych and 125+ from
>Dolgopolsky; I have one of his books) and I'm actually convinced.  But the
>more radical macrolanguage proposals, like Sino-Caucasian or
Dene-Caucasian,
>Amerind, Eurasian, and especially a supposed Proto-Language or Proto-World,
>are much more dubious -- and probably indeed unprovable.>
If you have time and patience, search the cybalist (egroups) archive for the
last several months, approx. March-May.  There was spirited and lengthy
discussion of all this, some trying to adduce purely linguistic evidence,
others bringing in the archeological/culture horizons evidence.  I never did
figure out if they were aiming at Proto-World, or just trying to unite
Afro-Asiatic/IE/Karvelian/Uralic etc. etc. as "Nostratic".

Curiously, my field, Austronesian, gets left out of all this speculation.
The level of reconstruction is _almost_ comparable to IE (though lacking in
early documentation).