From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 53858
Date: 2008-02-21
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick McCallister" <gabaroo6958@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 8:13 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Early Indo-European loanwords preserved in Finnish
> I found the term Semito-Hamitic telling. By 1970 or
> so, popular encyclopedias such as Funk & Wagnalls were
> already using Afro-Asiatic or Afrasian and explaining
> how outdated S-H was.
>
>
> --- jouppe <jouppe@...> wrote:
>
> > Very funny story ;) The problem with it is, that the
> > point Helimski
> > is trying to make contradicts completely what we
> > know about lexical
> > borrowings in more modern times. Things happen when
> > words are
> > borrowed and there are plenty of uncontested
> > analogies for the
> > methodology applied. There is no reason to believe
> > that borrowings
> > would have followed other rules in the past > more
> > follows below
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003"
> > <swatimkelkar@...>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > http://www.christopherculver.com/ignorance/?p=65
> > >
> > > Helimski thinks this is entirely without
> > foundation, and offers the
> > > following mirthful dialogue to illustrate this:"
> >
> > > M. Kelkar
> > >
> >
> > The ridiculing story has been published in
> > Helimski's article in
> > Carpelan, Christian; Parpola, Asko & Koskikallio,
> > Petteri (eds.):
> > Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European:
> > Linguistic and
> > Archeological Considerations. Helsinki (Mémoires de
> > la Societé Finno-
> > Ougrienne *242*) 2001: 201ff. The whole volume is
> > described well in
> > the internet at
> > http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-934.html
> >
> > Since I am in possession of the source I may share
> > with you also the
> > response by Jorma Koivulehto to that story and to
> > the 5 introductory
> > charges it strives to illustrate (same book page
> > 251f). I have
> > expanded the bibliographic references and added two
> > ortographic
> > remarks. I have written it by hand so any
> > misspellings or errors are
> > on my account. Italics are ignored.
> >
> > Quote
> > I hope the readers of this volume had a good laugh
> > at my expense
> > while reading the fictional scene staged by Eugene
> > Helimski in order
> > to ridicule my etymology. Seriously speaking,
> > however, there is no
> > substance in Helimski's criticism. Anything can be
> > borrowed, provided
> > that the contacts are intensive enough (Laakso,
> > Johanna 1999,
> > Language contact hypotheses and the history of
> > Uralic morphosyntax.
> > Journal de la Société Finno-ougrienne 88: page 62);
> > and words for
> > means of locomotion are especially likely to be
> > borrowed, unless
> > there is an acceptable autochthonous etymology,
> > which is not the case
> > here. The constant flow of lexical borrowings from
> > Indo-European to
> > Finno-Ugric accounts for the fact that no ancient
> > common Uralic or
> > Finno-Ugric term for `boat' has been preserved (at
> > least not in
> > westerly Finno-Ugric languages), although the object
> > itself was, as
> > an `Einbaum', well known in early Uralic times and
> > for a long time
> > before. - The method chosen by Helimski only shows
> > that he has run
> > out of serious arguments.
> > Since Helimski has also chosen to attack my
> > etymological research in
> > general and to reject my results wholesale, I am
> > obliged to deal with
> > his accusation in brief.
> > - Charge number 1: Lexical scope: My loan
> > etymologies contain almost
> > as many verbs and adjectives as nouns; and, more
> > generally, my loan
> > etymologies contain words for elementary objects and
> > actions. - This
> > charge is invalidated by the widely-known fact that
> > "in the case of
> > very intensive language contacts, practically
> > anything can be
> > borrowed, from words to affixes and structures"
> > (Laakso 1999: 62).
> > Unfortunately, this basic fact that has controlled
> > and verified by
> > numerous cases from more recent languages, seems to
> > be ignored by
> > researchers working on Nostratic premises. Actually,
> > this is quite
> > understandable: early loans _must_ be rejected
> > because they threaten
> > the Nostratic positions which presuppose that the
> > words concerned are
> > genetically related, Nostratic words. It would also
> > be interesting to
> > know which of the many adjectives claimed by
> > Helimski really are
> > covered in my paper published her. Among the 56
> > cases I can find only
> > the following three: *sera `old, aged' (no. 48),
> > *paksu `thick, fat,
> > dense' (no 52), *acnas {the c here carries a
> > v-shaped hat in the
> > source/Jouppe} `greedy, voracious' (no. 53), all of
> > them are Proto-
> > Iranian loans (additionally there is Finn. kalvas,
> > kalpea `pale',
> > which is only hinted at in connection with Saami
> > guolbba: no.26). I
> > will return to this question at the end of this
> > paper.
> > - Charge no. 2: The Indo-European source words and
> > their Finno-Ugric
> > counterparts postulated by me, "often" differ
> > semantically. - I think
> > we can safely claim the opposite: most of my cases
> > show a rather far-
> > going semantic congruence, given the fact that there
> > is a great time-
> > depth. That there are sometimes minor semantic
> > differences, is of
> > course unavoidable: the same can be observed also in
> > some recent
> > loans: cf. e.g. Finn. colloquial snaijata `to
> > understand, comprehend'
> > from Russian znat', znaet `to know'.
> > Charge no. 3: Stem structure: "quite often the
> > presumed sources
> > differ from the words which actually are attested in
> > the Indo-
> > European languages in the presence or absence of a
> > suffix, in their
> > Ablautstufen, etc.". - In my present paper, at
> > least, where is the
> > evidence of the first claim? Of course, now and then
> > we can observe
> > that genuine Finno-Ugric or Proto-Finnic suffixes
> > have been attached
> > to the borrowed stems, but this is nothing peculiar.
> > E.g. almost all
> > later verb borrowings have verbalizing suffixes, and
> > suffixation can
> > occur in nouns, too (e.g. -es {the s carries a
> > v-shaped hat in the
> > source/Jouppe} is a frequent suffix, often without
> > an exact
> > counterpart in the source word: see Koivulehto,
> > Jorma 1999. Verba
> > mutuata. Quae vestigia antiquissimi cum Germanis
> > aliisque Indo-
> > Europaeis contactus in linguis Fennicis reliquerint.
> > [in German].
> > Helsinki: Mémoires de la societé Finno-Ougrienne
> > 237. ISBN 952-5150-
> > 36-4. pages 309-328). The "omission" (Helimski:
> > "abscence") of a
> > suffix in the source word, as far as I know, very
> > rare in my material
> > and easily be accounted for. In no. 10 (*vete) the
> > Indo-European
> > counterpart is a heteroclitic -er/-en-stem, but it
> > is obvious that
> > this stem has been derived from a root noun *wed-
> > (cf. also Armenian
> > get `river'). And this is, of course also postulated
> > by
> > Nostraticists. As to the Ablautstufen, the assertion
> > is simply not
> > true. In no case do I suggest an Ablautstufe which
> > would not be
> > attested in the source material, that is in the
> > postulated source
> > word.
> > Charge no. 4: Phonetics: Helimski reproaches me for
> > having made new
> > rules, which, however, are illustrated only with new
> > etymologies
> > which also stem from me. Helimski obviously refers
> > to new
> > substitution rules. - Helimski's attacks here a
> > standard scientific
> > procedure. If I claim to have found a new
> > substitution model, the
> > proof of it can only be produced by showing that "it
> > works",
> === message truncated ===
>
>
>
>
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