Re: FYI re: Greenberg's Universals

From: "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>
> On Tue, Oct 03, 2000 at 05:51:57PM -0400, Jonathan Chang wrote:
> >     FYI: Greenberg's 1966 study surveyed only 30 languages:
> > Basque, Serbian, Welsh, Norwegian, Modern Greek, Italian, Finnish
(European);
> > Yoruba, Nubian, Swahili, Fulani, Masai, Songhai, Berber (African);
> > Turkish, Hebrew, Burushaski, Hindi, Kannada, Japanese, Thai, Burmese,
Malay
> > (Asian);
> > Maori, Loritja (Oceanic);
> > Maya, Zapotec, Quechua, Chibcha, Guarani (American Indian)
> Hmm. No Mandarin?? How did he miss it, it being such a prominent (and
> prominently isolating) language in the Orient?
Because he already had a Sino-Tibetan language in
the form of Burmese.

> And no English either? Why?
Because he already had a Germanic language in
the form of Norwegian.