Re: Lesbianism and IE gender distinction

Gerry wrote

> > NigerKordofanian languages cover the central belt of Africa, whereas
> > AfroAsiatic languages (to answer your next question) are part of

the younger

> > Nostratic group and cover the northern part of Africa. Both groups

had

> > spread into the continent from the Middle East - first

NigerKordofanian and

> > then AfroAsiatic on top of it.

Gerry that is news to me. What evidence do you have that Niger
Khordofanian is not African? According to Cavalli-Sforza the Niger
Khordofanian languages are totally African in origin. This ties in
well with the archaeology as there seems to be a West African source of
dispersal, with various waves. There are currently five branches to
this group. The West Atlantic (including Fulani), Mande, North Central
(including Gru and the Adamawa-Ubangian waves that spread Eastward
along the southern Sahel prior to the last group), the South Central
Niger Congo (bantu included) group.

> >The oldest language group in Africa seems to
> > be Khoisan. BTW, Khoisan DOES have a distinction between masculine

and

> > feminine as in the Nama masculine noun "|~us" (Can't remember the

meaning)

> > and "|~ub" ("wheel") in the feminine. (/|~/ is a nasal alveolar

ingressive,

> > a click sound)

There is no evidence that Khoisan languages are any older than Niger
Khordofanian, or Nilo-Saharan languages. They seem to have spread out
long before humans left Africa, and to be a lot older than Nostratic.
On the genetics it would seem that this pattern best corroborates the
evidence.

> Gerry: Fascinating again. What do you know about difference classes

in

> the days of our early ancestors?
>
> > >Gerry: Gosh! At the rate you're going you'll have all the world
> > >languages linked up!
> >
> > Well, I've got everything tamed except Khoisan, Asiatic languages
> > (Australian, Austronesian, Thai, MonKhmer, Hmongwhatchamacallit),

Amerind,

> > Tartessian and Iberian. Dene-Caucasian is enough to handle for now.

I'll get

> > on the others when I'm 50. I do find Hmong interesting though,

especially

> > its interesting non-Mandarin-like typological constraints on final
> > consonants... (more suspense via elipsis)
> >
>
> Gerry: Good luck -- you're a very precocious person!

Do you know of the attempts to look at Ur-World, following upon
Greenspan's techniques in showing three groups in the Americas (Innuit,
Na-Dene and Amerind)? Interesting stuff. The Eurasiatic Superphyllum
linked Indo-European, Uraolic-Yukaghir, Altaic, Eskimo-Aleut and
Chukchi-Kamchatkan). Nostratic foes not include the last two, but adds
Afro-Asiatic and Dravidian to the mix. There is also the attempt to
link Sino-Tibetan - Caucausian/Basque - Eurasiatic - Amerind -
Nostratic (the SCAN hyptothesis). It excludes Austro-Asiatic, Daic,
Austronesian, Indo Pacific and Australian languages which seem earlier.

It thus seems that the SCAN links all cultures that were Aurignacian in
origin (40,000 years BP), but does not link those that occurred before
(Aboriginal people were in Australia from at least 60,000 years BP).

John