Re: CHAT: Genetics: was: CHAT: minimum phonemes, was vrindo

Dans un courrier dat=E9 du 24/06/99 13:10:52  , Boudewijn a =E9crit :

> I think it is rather dangerous to try and link genetic descent
>  and linguistic descent - the two don't have anything to do with
>  each other. While linguistic ability is 'in the genes', as the
>  phrase goes, the language itself is not. Linking the genetic
>  affilations of an ethnic group with the linguistic affiliation
>  of that group is a lot like the discredited practice in Indo-European
>  archeology of linking a certain kind of pottery to a certain
>  linguistic subgrouping.
i know little of korean language, but the little i've learned shows jap and=20
korean are very close (amazingly close imho). then you may want to compare=20
the jap 5th and 6th century-tumbs with other mounds in korea. i don't want t=
o=20
back korean claims about all that (a korean friend told me that "nara" means=20
"our land" in old korean (?), and that the legend goes that koreans settled=20
in the plain of nara), but i mean : come on. even recent jap articles claim=20
that the yamato conquest and the emishi retreat to the north were so slow (a=20
thousand years' span) that a bit more help from jap scholars themselves woul=
d=20
clear up the whole thing and show that jap language owes to both. what is=20
unique in japanese is not their origin, but the way they distorted them. and=20
though i must say that the current trend for emishi curios in japan may=20
result in unbiased conclusions.

mathias