Re: [tied] Let dogs have their day too

----- Original Message -----

From: Richard Wordingham

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 10:37 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Let dogs have their day too

> The initial consonant is /k/ (or very similar) in 23% of the cases.  If one adds in /h/ and the affricates, for affricates often derive from /k/, one obtains 13/31, or 12/29 if one discounts /ps/, between 42% and 41%.  In fact, of the sample, we know that 'hond', 'sje' and 'seta' derive from words beginning with gutturals, so words now or once beginning with gutturals make up at least 9/31 = 29%, or 8/29 = 27% when double-counting of words derived from PIE kwo:n and Spanish perro is removed.

 

Adding /h/ is a highly questionable idea, since /h/ can derive from practically any other onset (e.g. *p or *s in Armenian, *s or *j in Greek, *p or *d in Seimat, ex nihilo in many languages). We happen to know the origin of /h/ in <hond>, but what about more exotic languages? Affricates can't be added as a matter of fact either, since they frequently derive from coronal stops or reinforced glides (not to mention rarer sources).

I would therefore say that there is a large proportion of languages in which the word for 'dog' begins or derives from a word that began with /k/.  I am not sure how statistically significant these results are; totting up the statistics of word-initials would be a lot more work.  Does anyone have distributional data to hand?  It may need to be corrected for vowel-initial words, for I have taken the first consonant.

With just 31 examples, the margin of uncertainty is very large. Each item affects the total figures by ca. 3,2%. I chose 10 more languages more or less at random, honest to God, just trying not to chose members of the same family twice:

 

Hixkaryána (Carib) ------------------------------ kaykusu

Swahili (Bantu) --------------------------------- mbwa

Sandawe ("Khoisan", actually an isolate) -------- gaga

Warlpiri (Pama-Nyungan) ------------------------- maligi

Hmong Daw (Hmong-Mien) -------------------------- dav

Amharic (Semitic) ------------------------------- w1s^s^a

Tamil (Dravidian) ------------------------------- na:y

Paiwanese (Austronesian) ------------------------ vatu

Yau (Trans-New Guinea) -------------------------- sap

Mopán Maya -------------------------------------- pec'

 

Where are all the dorsals gone? Here, the initials include 50% (!) of labials, 30% of coronals and 20% of velars.

 

At the very least, the claims that (1) _most_ 'dog' words begin with /k/, and that (2) the shape /kan/ is "typical" are not supported by such preliminary surveys.

 

Piotr