Re: FYI re: Greenberg's Universals

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? And no English either? Why?


T