Re: OT: Chance resemblances...

E fésto Muke Tever <hotblack@...>:
> E fésto Robert Jung <RobertMJung@...>:
>> Japanese <yoi> (/joi/ "good") reminds me of Hungarian /jo:/ (<jo'>). Is
>> this a case of "chance resemblance" (as Mark Rosenfelder calls the
>> looking-alike of Chinese <ren1> and Quechua <runa>, "person") or is
>> there a connection?
>
> Odds are remarkably slim.  Japanese /j/ has a tendency to descend from
> *d, for one, and is most likely not in the same family as Hungarian to
> begin with.
>
> Starostin puts Japanese |í-|, |yó-| 'good', from a protoform *dǝ̀-
> (Proto-Altaic *di̯òge), related to Korean čō(h)-, Khalkha ʒā, and
> Turkish jeɣ, jej.   [I suppose those are phonetic representations.]
To balance that, I should mention that the protoform of Magyar jó appears
to have been something like *jom.  It could be done, but not likely (heck,
you even have PIE *yew-os- "right" to throw in too, if you're going for
that sort of thing).



        *Muke!
--
http://frath.net/                  E jer savne zarjé mas ne
http://kohath.livejournal.com/     Se imné koone'f metha
http://kohath.deviantart.com/      Brissve mé kolé adâ.

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