Re: pre-Nostratic *male[:]k?xa, 'milk (vb.)'

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <smykelkar@...> wrote:

> > You're missing the point. Ethnologue lists about 110 language
> > families. If you were to do the comparison between each of the
> > non-Dene-Caucasian families and Proto-Indo-European, you would be
> > unlucky not to get such a good match.
>
> They may have used only the five mentioned in the paper.

Others have not - people have been on the look out for correspondences
for a very long time.

> Yes, the comparisons have to be restricted to the basic words. It is
> difficult to accept that OC baba, Marathi baba (father) and English
> papa are by chance. If there is no genetic relationship then it must
> be an early loan.

Or a late loan! The earliest record of _papa_ meaning 'father' in
English is the 17th century. (The related word _pope_ for the Bishop
of Rome is older than English as a separate language.) It seems that
these simple, babyish words in early babbling will be interpreted if
possible as attempts to say a word meaning father or mother, though
not necessarily in the parents' mother tongue. Thus in these words
the probability of chance similarity of simple or repetitive forms
based on 'ma', 'pa' or 'ta' is actually quite high.

> http://www.zompist.com/lang9.html#10
>
> "Actually, this process is iterative. For instance, at first glance we
> might think that German haben and Latin habere 'have' are obvious
> cognates. However, after noting the regular correspondence of German h
> to Latin c, we are forced to change our minds, and look to capere
> 'seize' as a better cognate for haben."
>
> Latin is attested in writing at least a thousand years before German.
> So how could there be a regular corrospondence of German h and Latin
> c?

Because the correspondence is a consequence of history, rather than a
dynamic process of conversion between the two languages. There
actually is a similar process for converting between Low German and
High German - but this too has its root in the phonetic history of the
dialects.

> There is a big difference between having something and capturing
> something. Latin capere and capture seem like cognates. Applying the
> same rule to English capare could be a cognate to have and capture
> both. Or one would have to argue that capture and capere are spurious.

Are you aware that _capture_ comes from _capere_ by rules of Latin
word formation (_capere_ > _captu:ra_) and the rules for naturalising
Latin words in English?

And it is not unknown for two sets of widespread correspondences to
exist in a language, one apparently due to inheritance and another due
to borrowing.

Richard.