Re: IE, Uralic, SinoTibetan and incompetent sources

> > [Alexander]:
> > Indeed, millet is cultivated in some regions of the AN area (Taiwan,
> Sumatra)
> > but nowhere it is the main crop NOW. Maybe you know facts which show
> that the
> > situation was different several millenia ago? I'd be grateful if you
> share this
> > information.
> >
> [Guillaume]:
> I couldn't give you any archeological arguments as regard to the AN
> peoples. However, it will be evident to anyone familiar with AN
> languages of Taiwan that they are much archaic than all other AN
> languages, even those of the philipines. Extra-formsan (or PMP, if you
> prefer) is but one branch of a sub-branch of AN, and Paiwan is one of
> the nearest relative to PMP. This seem to indicate that AN people are
> originated from Taiwan.

Alexander:
Guillaume, if you says that Formosan languages are the most archaic among AN I
don't see a reason to doubt. The fact that Taiwan is "the motherland of all AN"
does not follows from this automatically but seems to be very probable. However
both of us believe that Proto-AN came to Taiwan from somewhere (either from the
Yellow R. basin with millet according to you or from SE Asia with taro and rice
according to me). BTW they were not first settlers there. Initially Taiwan was
populated by Negritos hunter-gatherers what is proved by both archaeology and
mythology.

>
> Now, AN people of Taiwan, although they know rice, have millet as their
> main crop;

Do you relay on direct ethnographical observations or this assertion is just a
logical consequence from your lexical data? 3 my different sources indicate both
rice and millet as 'gaoshan' cereals but always first rice (the only exception
from one article: Bunun prefer millet whereas some other folks prefer rice),
plus taro is mentioned. BTW some tribes cultivate DRY rice. I think it should be
considered as a strong sign of archaics.

I can't find information which kinds of millet are spread in Taiwan. Can you
help?

> just checking my dictionary of Paiwan : they are two words
> for rice, one of which is loaned from japanese; the other is paday,
> (cognate with malay padi), that designates grains of rice, not the food.
> If you just look now the entry for millet, you will find twenty
> different words for different species of millet, whether it is cooked
> or not etc.

Anyway this is an amazing fact (even if we were sure that millet was the primary
crop)! All this 20 words are independent, not cognates?
How many words for millet has Chinese (had AC)?

> In some cases, words for cooked millet can be used also for
> cooked rice.

The opposite situation is excluded?

>
> One could argue that AN people in Taiwan, once settled took millet as
> their main crop, and thus out of necessity created a varied vocabulary.
> A good thing to test this is to look whether the words for millet are
> innovated in AN languages in Taiwan or whether they are reconstructible
> to PAN. I have to check many dictionaries before I can give a better
> answer to this question.

Indeed, the question must be cleared up, no matter what hypotheses we support.
Please, make an analogous investigation for taro and yam. Look, AN people from
Oceania prefer these vegetables, neither millet nor rice.

Thanks in advance,

Alexander