A message on classification. ObConlang bit first.
IIRC, Tepa is an isolate, but phonologically similar to the group of
languages
whose name escapes me at present but includes Shoshone. Is this due
to areal influence, do we think, or to the fact that the only informant
was in
fact a native speaker not of Tepa but of (?) Paiute?
Matt:
> Hm, I'll have to have a look at that article. Incidentally, to
clarify
> my original comment, I don't think there's anyone out there who
seriously
> believes that Japanese is an Austronesian language
Only since Paul Benedict's death (I think).
> - so my use of the term
> "substrate" here is perhaps misleading. What's at issue is whether or
> not 'Proto-Japanese' speakers had any significant contact with
Austronesian
> speakers which might have had some effect on the language. People
have
> argued that there are old Austronesian loanwords in Japanese, for
example.
> I could also see Austronesian languages having an impact on the
phonology
> of Japanese (which is quite different from Korean or any other Altaic
> language), much as Eastern Bantu had an influence on the phonology of
> Malagasy, or Khoisan had an influence on the phonology of Southern
Bantu
> (all those clicks in Zulu and Xhosa, etc.). But as I say, I don't
know
> the facts...
There is a reputable but neglected Sino-Austronesian hypothesis,
according to
which Chinese is Austronesian. I forget now whether the Tibetan half of
Sino
Tibetan also goes in with Austronesian. The problem with all such
proposals
like these is that they tend to be published in obscure and inaccessible
places,
with available books on classification either defeastistically
conservative
or based on imagination rather than scholarship. At any rate, the S(T)AN
hypothesis fits with what Matt says.
--And.