On Sat, 7 Apr 2001 11:23:09 +0200, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>Speaking as an interested onlooker:
>
>It seems to me that a "North Nostratic" core group (IE, Uralic and Altaic, corresponding to Glen's "Steppe" macrofamily, except that most Nostraticists are silent about Etruscan) is the most widely accepted genetic unit.

This may be the case among Nostraticists, but among historical
linguists in general, as I think you mentioned, the very existence of
a thing called "Altaic" is held seriously in doubt. Surprisingly,
Glen's "Boreal" group [Uralic[-Yukaghir], Eskimo-Aleut and
Chukchi-Kamchatkan] has now recently been proposed by serious
"mainstream" linguists (Fortescue 1998, Seefloth 2001), and "proven"
(based on the possessive pronominal paradigms) to the satisfaction of
at least my e-friend and Altaio-skeptic Stefan Georg (formerly
Chukcho-Kamchatkan-skeptic). I have a pre-print of Seefloth's paper,
and as far as my limited knowledge of the languages involved permits
me to judge, his case seems solid (though it [my lack of knowledge]
does not permit me to give a _short_ summary of it [his case]).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...