Re: languages of pre-I.E. Europe and onwards

2009/1/23 R A Brown <ray@...>

> David McCann wrote:
>
>> For me, the Etruscan mi "I" is a pretty good start towards classing it
>> as Nostratic. Consider the probabilities. If the average language has 25
>> consonants, any consonant should occur for "I" in about 6000 / 25 = 240
>> languages, randomly distributed. The facts that m- and k- are absent
>> from South America, and p- and r- are absent everywhere shows that the
>> distribution is non-random, and hence significant.
>>
>
> I see. So Swahili _mimi_ = "I, me" is a pretty good start to classifying it
> as Nostratic?

Add to this Vietnamese "*mình*". Sometimes I wonder whether the m sound in
the words for "I" in so many languages do not have the same origin as the
ones in "mama": something in the human anatomy/brain/learning process makes
that this sound is connected with the self. It doesn't work for many other
languages, however, though that could be due to language evolution and a
less strong bond between m and self than between m and mother.

Greets
David

-- 
Idustvok va yentelkvil gifpir, puk gifpir, ivan kitil.

Replies