Thank you for your reply Miguel. A few additional questions:
1) Have the proposed matings (below) been resolved linguistically
i.e. from stem comparisons?
2) You claim that Greenberg: "does *not* include Sumerian, [Elamo-]
Dravidian or Kartvelian. He does tentatively include Etruscan". Why
doesn't Greenberg include Sumerian? There is actually much
information regarding this language:
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze33gpz/sumer-faq.html
Likely he didn't have access to Google.
3) Why have you placed ??? between Euroasiatic and Austronesian?
4) Thus, rather than a proto-World you wish to compile a Nostratic
list which includes Indo-European. Am I correct in assuming that I/E
has been completely compiled?
5) If languages are fluid with each valley of the world containing a
separate dialect, how can any scholar determine whether a particular
language such as Basque is a true language (thereby an ethnic group)
or not?

Respectfully,
Gerry



--- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
> 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@...