On Fri, 06 Dec 2002 20:21:11 -0000, "Gerry" <waluk@...>
wrote:

>Some of the proposed matings are:
>
>Indo-European, Dravidian, Mongolian, South Caucasian, Tungusic,
>Turkic, Uralic, and perhaps Afro-Asiatic.
>Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, Sumerian, Uralic, Altaic, Elamo-
>Dravidian, and Kartvelian.

These two are actually nearly identical.

Indo-European Indo-European
Dravidian Elamo-Dravidian
Mongolian \
Tungusic - Altaic
Turkic /
Uralic Uralic
South Caucasian Kartvelian
[Afro-Asiatic] Afro-Asiatic
-- Sumerian

Altaic = Mongolian + Tungusic + Turkic. South Caucasian = Kartvelian.

>Joseph H. Greenberg has also proposed the similar Eurasiatic
>Hypothesis, which combines Indo-European, Sumerian, Uralic, Altaic,
>Elamo-Dravidian, Kartvelian, Ainu, Japanese and some eastern Siberian
>languages to form a supposed macrofamily.

Greenberg in his book actually proposes:
Indo-European, Uralic-Yukaghir, Altaic, Korean, Ainu, Japanese, Gilyak
(=Nivkh), Chukotian (=Chukchi-Kamchatkan, Luorawetlan) and
Eskimo-Aleut.

He does *not* include Sumerian, [Elamo-]Dravidian or Kartvelian. He
does tentatively include Etruscan.

>Based on Alexeev's lectures 9 & 10, I have compiled an hypothetical
>construct of the NOstratic Mega FAmily:
>
>- Indo-European
>- Semitic (Cushitic)

Afro-Asiatic consists of:
- Semitic
- Ancient Egyptian
- Berber
- Chadic
- Beja (Bedawi)
- Cushitic
- Omotic

>- Kartvelian
>- Darvidian
>- Uralo-Altaic (including Athapaskan)

Whether Altaic is a genuine family or an areal grouping of three
(Tungusic, Mongolian, Turkic) or more (Korean, Japanese) independent
families is a hotly debated issue. Nobody accepts Uralo-Altaic
anymore. And what's Athapaskan doing here?

>- Yukaghirian (connected to Uralic)
>- Euroasiatic

???

>- Austronesian
>- Ainu (recently connected to Altaic)

Also and just as recently connected to Austronesian and/or Austric,
Ainu remains an isolate.

>- Kets isolated family

Ket (Yenisei-Ostyak) is a language isolate which used to belong in a
larger Yeniseian language family, the other members of which are
[relatively recently] extinct. Yeniseian has been included by some in
Sino-Caucasian / Dene-Caucasian.

>- Nivkhs isolated family

Nivkh (= Gilyak) has been linked to Eurasiatic by Greenberg.

>- Paleoasiatic/Eskaleut (in the process of being resolved)

Palaeoasiatic (Palaeosiberian) is just a wastebasket grouping of all
Siberian and/or Asian isolates (Yeniseian, Yukaghir, Chukchi-
Kamchatkan, Gilyak, sometimes also Ainu, Eskimo-Aleut, Burushaski).

Eskimo-Aleut has convincingly been linked to Uralic and Chukotian.

Personally, I think that if we define Nostratic as the group of
languages that are likely to be genetically linked with Indo-European,
the Nostratic group is definitely composed of:

- Indo-European (by definition)
- Etruscan/Tyrrhenian
- Uralic
- Eskimo-Aleut
- Kartvelian
- Afro-Asiatic

It is likely that some other language families belong to Nostratic as
well (Altaic, Yukaghir, Chukotian, Dravidian), but I do not have
sufficient knowledge of them to confirm or deny that. Two language
isolates that I *have* studied in depth (Basque and Sumerian) are
probably also related, but it's difficult to prove the point, for
various reasons that I will not go into now.


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