Re: A SinoTibetan-Vasconic Comparison: A very, very, very, very len

From: Guillaume JACQUES
Message: 1164
Date: 2000-01-26

n medial -CC- in
> polysyllabic words like this. The ubiquitous *-i later hitched a
ride.
> Vasconic *m- regularly becomes Basque b and is not surprising since
Basque
> words that now have /m-/ are all foreign words or abbhorations. ST
has
> *bryat or *brat with regular contraction of initial syllables and *mr
> *br
> for the same reasons as *-nr- in Vasconic.

Well, AC had many clusters in mr-, like maengH < a/mrangs "older
brother". There is no data I know that would justify an mr- initial for
a/brat.
Tibetan only one root in mr- : smra "to speak", but no modern dialect
has this cluster anymore. *mr > rm- in general : rmang "horse", cognate
with burmese mrang and chinese a/mra? < maeX (loaned into chinese).
Anyway, mr- cluster is widely attested in TB (kachin, rgyarong,
burmese...).

Guillaume