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

On Wed, 23 Jun 1999, alypius wrote:

>
> Sometime last year, Discover magazine had an article about how DNA testing
> had shown that the Japanese were definitely descended from Korean
> immigrants.  Of course, both these peoples will likely be displeased by this
> discovery.  This seems like very strong supporting evidence that Japanese is
> an offshoot of the Korean tongue.  ~alypius
>
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.

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