>
> Intercontinental megalocomparison makes even less sense. Proponents
of Proto-World reconstruct *kwan 'dog' (if I remember aright). Mumbo-
jumbo aside, the real basis for this impressionistic "reconstruction"
(mass comparison is not a reconstructive procedure, in fact) is PIE
*k^won- plus a number of accidentally similar forms from arbitrarily
chosen families and languages. Of course, anything that is _not_
similar is ignored. Thus, for example, Proto-Oceanic *nkaun (an up-to-
date reconstruction ought to be *gaun) is offered as a cognate
despite the fact (known to Austronesianists, but not to lay visitors
to Proto-World websites or readers of popular articles) that the very
existence of a common Oceanic term for 'dog' is somewhat problematic
and that *gaun is at best a POc innovation that replaced a Proto-
Austronesian word (*wasu) lost in Oceanic. PAN *wasu is not
mentioned; neither are lots of other 'dog' words just because they
have no dorsals or nasals in them. Since the motto "Seek, and ye
shall find" works very well if only you have a sufficient number of
dictionaries and word lists to hand, the results are guaranteed to be
positive, and who cares if the reconstruction is strangely IE-centric
or if domestic dogs are rather unlikely creatures to have existed in
the Proto-World dreamtime.
>
> Piotr
>
Why "cognate"? Claiming it to be a loan word would fit much nicer.
Besides, crossing the Bering Strait bridge (in Ice Age weather,
brrr!) would be much nicer with dogs pulling stuff. And if dogs were
brought into the New World, when did they decide to call it something
else?
Torsten