Re: Piata (was: Re: Invaluable conlang links: new site)

Daniel Andreasson wrote:
>> Cousin language of John Cowan's Piat?
>
>No, it's really not. :) This is an introduction that I wrote
>yesterday.
>
>- - - - -
>
>Piata is a Native American language spoken by the Piata tribe. The Piata
live in the north east of the United States, in northern Michigan at the
eastern shore of lake Michigan.


Near what town?  I can hop in my car and do field work for you :-)))
Perhaps they've started a casino.

>
>Most sources claim that Piata is distantly related to other Algonquian
languages, but not as sister languages. It seems that it is rather descended
directly from Algic, and thus a sister family of the Algonquian language
family, but with only one member. Both Wiyot and Yurok are said to be of the
same kind, and thus it is possible that Piata is indeed a daughter of Algic
and a sister to Algonquian, Wiyot and Yurok. This is likely, even though it
is hard to see any similarities in the vocabulary, for instance, except for
borrowings.

I seem to recall, years ago, seeing papers by Mary Haas (?), in which she
related words from the Calif. languages to Proto Alg. by dropping random
phonemes out of the protoform. (Well, "random" is a little strong; there
_was_ a sort-of system.)  It all seemed a little suspect at the time, though
the longer you looked at it, the more reasonable it came to seem. I think
I've still got the copy, we'll see......
And in fact, I think the relationship is now accepted.

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