Re: Afro-Asiatic

Glen wrote in reply to my long post. In reply to my

> >Glen, first of all I am NOT fighting against Nostratic Theory (see my
> >post of last night). My Caucasian-Japethic family (or more properly
>a
> >Karvellian-Japethic theory) [...]

he claims

> Yes, you're fighting it. You're fighting the name Nostratic for

something

> else.

I am *NOT* fighting the use of the name Nostratic. How many times, and
how many ways do need to tell you that!!! }:(

> Kartvelian is a Nostratic language.

I agree totally. !!!!

> Japhetic is an ugly reference to
> the Bible and to racism (neither being scientific), and the term

hasn't been

> used for a hundred years except by:
>
> 1. fanatical religious groups
> 2. racists, neo-NAZIs, skinheads
> 3. the down-right crazy (or same as 2.)
> 4. the educationally impaired

So what. You use the term Semitic, and that has been used equally by
these same four groups. It also has good reasons for its use in
linguistic theory. What I am proposing is that Karvellian is the only
one surviving member of a group of languages that was probably once
more widely spread... These languages that were once more widely spread
were NOSTRATIC - I DON'T ARGUE WITH YOU ON THAT, but they WERE NOT
INDO-EUROPEAN, URALIC, DRAVIDIAN, AFRO-ASIATIC, ALTAIC NOR ANY ONE OF
THE OTHER FAMILIES THAT GO TOGETHER TO MAKE UP NOSTRATIC. THEY NEED A
NAME AND THE NAME I AM USING IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY OTHER IS JAPETHIC.

Please suggest to me a better name for this reputed substratum family
if you don't like Japethic and I'll use it!

> This is not a good term to be using for any linguistic theory (which

this is

> not).
>
> John:
> >This group, shown culturally by the Kabellan-Zarzian cultures
>expanded
> >north and west into Anatolia and expanded southwards and >eastwards

into

> >Plateau Iran in mesolithic times.
>
> _Cultures_! It may not necessarily even suggest population movement

or

> linguistic movement.

Agreed.

>
> Me say:
> >>Secondly, there is absolutely no linguistic evidence to warrant a
> >>linguistic division of "Arctic". Eskimo-Aleut, Chuckchi-Kamchatkan
>> and
> >>Yukaghir (closely related to Uralic) are Nostratic. Yeniseian >>

and

> >>Burushaski appear to share close ties and are part of the larger
> >>Dene-Caucasian group.
> >>[...]
> >>You have no linguistical leg to stand on.
>
> Johann wieder:
> >[...] Yukaghir has been suggested to be a distant relative of Uralic,
> >[...]
> >Paleolithic cultures of Malaya and Mal'ta.
>
> Japanese and Korean are Altaic.

News to me. Oh, I am aware that some put it in the Altaic family. But
others I have seen argue that they are isolates, and yet others I have
seen have argued that Japanese is even not even related to each other!

> Chuckchi-Kamchatkan is not tightly related
> to Uralic as far as I know but is seperated from Uralic by 10,000

years

> maximum. Yukaghir on the other hand is to Uralic as Etrusco-Lemnian

is to IE

> - very close. The Inuit speak a language of the well-established
> Eskimo-Aleut family (Aleut, Inupiaq, Inuktitut) and is indeed closely
> related linguistically to Chuckchi-Kamchatkan and to Uralic-Yukaghir.

> Gilyak
> is also part of this group of languages that ultimately sprang from

the

> Middle-East along with Dravidian under the Nostratic macro-grouping.

Again, news to me... most texts I have consulted consider Gilyak an
isolate with no relatives.

> Sakhalin and Tsishima are dialects of the Ainu language group which

is

> showing some affiliation to AN and other Asiatic languages to the

south.

>
> What's more, the Amerind languages as distantly related to

Dene-Caucasian as

> they no doubt are, seem to have the same general pattern in their

pronominal

> systems that one can observe for DC. Certainly the entire Amerind

spectrum

> could not have been influenced by Na-Dene nor could Na-Dene have been
> influenced that much by Amerind languages. On the other hand, Amerind

cannot

> for obvious timeline reasons be a Dene-Caucasian group. A very

ancient Asian

> connection seems imminent.
>
> Of course, you still have Khoisan and Nilo-Saharan to play with (of

which

> I'm completely unfamiliar with) and all those isolate languages like
> Burmeso, Nihali...
>
> No leg, John, no leg.

Rubbish, there is also the Australian and Indo-Pacific languages that
don't fall part of your Nostratic catch all for everything

> John:
> >I would refer you to the research done on the fact that "speakers
> >spread language" and that "people spread genes". And surprisingly
> >speakers are people!
>
> And I continue to refer you to the proper research done that

acknowledges

> that "language can spread on its own without population movement".

Movement

> of population implies linguistic movement (as you say) BUT NOT

VICE-VERSA!!!

> I just want to drill that point home.
>
> Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene are examples of a languages that spread into

North

> America because of population movement. Common modern languages such

as

> English, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, etc are examples of

languages

> that have spread _without_ population movement, due to our

high-degree of

> communication. Ancient examples of languages that spread all around

without

> any clear genetic movement but due rather to economic and political

bonds

> would be Hittite, Egyptian, Sumerian and Akkadian.

Rubbish! English spread because small groups of Englishmen imposed
their empire on half the world. French, and Mandarin spread likewise.
German was spread througout Eastern Europe by groups of German speakers
who moved into those countries, married and raised their children to
speak German. Japanese is spoken in those countries where Japanese
people have moved.... languages don't move independely from people!

As for Hittite, Egyptian, Sumerian and Akkadian - these languages moved
because speakers of these languages moved. Economic and political
bonds are forged by people moving! They don't occur otherwise.

> In fact, the original popularity and rise of IndoEuropean in the
> Pontic-Caspian area may have been because it was used as a lingua

franca for

> the local economy, not because of physical displacement or spread.

And note,

> C.S.'s data if I can recall was showing a dispersal of genetics

radiating

> out from Anatolia and Middle-East thereabouts. The dispersal would

have

> occured somewhere around 6,000 BCE and with it, European agriculture.

If

> genetics is supposed to shine light on linguistic affiliation, why do

we

> have IE speakers in a continent of people who have genetics from

speakers of

> languages that were obviously part of other language groups? Don't be

daft,

I know lingua francae. I spent 4 years in the highlands of Papua New
Guinea where tok pisin, hiri motu and half a dozen less well known
lingua francae exist. They exist because speakers of one language move
into the area of speakers of a second language and decide to use a
simplified dialect as a means of communication. Read C.S. yourself.
He explains this feature well!

Why should people have a lingua franca unless they are in contact with
each other... and if they are in contact in the pre-technological
world, they were face to face, having moved to see each other. Where
face to face contacts occurred, genetic contacts frequently followed.

Your theory of lingua franca is a strange one. It came from the
Crusades as the language of the faringhee. You mean to say, as a
result of politcal and economic bonds, in which neither group met face
to face, the Europeans created the Middle Eastern lingua franca...

You finished

> John. Give it up.

Glen... do the same.

Warmest regards (if somewhat angrilly)

John

>
> Here, language spread is not caused by physical displacement but by

other

> less archaeologically determinable circumstances.
>
> We can't begin to guess the social stresses placed on language spread

or

> demise as it occured some 15,000 years ago. If you can rid us of all

these

> ancient-society-related lurking variables, by all means we'll support

your

> shakey theory.
>
> John again:
> >Glen, I think we need to look at more than linguistic evidence over
> >time. We need to consider linguistic evidence, genetic evidence and
> >cultural evidence if we are to successfully uncover what happened in
> >the past. To include only linguistic etymology as the source of your
> >information is to buildfold yourself and work only by a sense of
>touch.
>
> John, obviously you need _linguistic_ research as the _basis_ of your
> _linguistic_ theories, just as _genetic_ research must be the _basis_

of

> _genetic_ theories. There's nothing more to say on that. Neither you

nor

> C.S. et alius who squeeze these conclusions out of our DNA seem to go

to

> that necessary length.
>
> - gLeN
>
> ______________________________________________________