Re: Polynesian family (was Re: A new Indo-European subfamily in China)

On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, E-Ching Ng wrote:

> Before I go - I know that Japanese and Malay both have a
> question-marker "ka", though in Malay I think it can go anywhere
> in the sentence and in Japanese it has to be at the end.  I wonder
> if anyone's looked at Malay when trying to trace the origins of
> Japanese?

Oh, yes.  The plurality view on Japanese is that it is an Altaic lang
with Austronesian substrate, though some think it is vice versa.

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
        --Douglas Hofstadter