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

On Tue, 22 Jun 1999, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> > though they all agreed to revile Roy Andrew Miller...
>=20
> Who's Roy Andrew Miller, and what did he do to deserve such widespread
> reviling?
>=20
A scholar with a personality, who's also been busy for years trying
to place Japanese. As far as I know, he was one of the first western
scholars who tried to prove that Japanese wasn't unique and a language
isolate, and for that, most Japanese scholars have reviled him. Now I
must admit that some of his work has a slightly shoddy look to it - that
is, he offers not all that many sound correspondences, and the ones
he offer look a bit iffy. But that's all just by way of impression,
as it's not exactly my field, and by way of having heard people
talk about him.

>=20
> Both it and Basque are distant relatives of Watakass=ED.  ;-)
>=20
Can you offer evidence for that? ;-) I'm a bit reminded of someone
I once heard talking on a congress about the genetic affiliation
of Chinese and Maya - both languages split in 1600 or thereabouts,
according to him. I've forgotten his name, but his theories were
very, very creative!

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt