Re: THEORY: A possible Proto-World phonology

At 17:49 28.6.2000 +0200, Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:

>The huge dispersion of Indo-European --- even huger if you include its
>Nostratic cousins --- does give the impression that if we could but go
>one 'layer' deeper, we must find relationships over even larger areas,
>and that the whole world could be covered in a few easy steps.
IMO Nostratic is non-provable (and improbable) for the very reasons you
give(*).

(*Among others: if IE originated in Europe/the Pontic Steppe/Iran and
Afroasiatic in Egypt-Ethiopia (i.e. along the Nile, with Semitic entering
Asia thru Arabia) they can't very well be related.  Similar reservations
apply to Elamo-Dravidian vs. IE.  OTOH I'm not adverse to the idea that
Fenno-Ugric and IE are related (witness the pronominal stems!), and then
the similarities between FU and Altaic are well known.  Thirdly: since
reading Dixon I believe the IE case is atypical in more than one way, but
written attestation shortly after the breakup -- incl. anatolian, which is
probably an early break-off group -- is the main one.)



/BP
--
  B.Philip Jonsson  mailto:melroch@mail.com
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