Re: A SinoTibetan-Vasconic Comparison: A very, very, very, very len

Merry chinese New Year to everybody.

Because I have to spend some time outside Paris, you have till Monday
to answer the poll.

> Yes, understood. However, I'm wondering, was there aspiration

contrast at

> all either? The correspondance *pingu > *bnga is nagging me. It makes

me

> feel that even */p[h]/- and */p/- were the same in ST.

Well, I don't have yet any precise idea of the consonnantal system of
proto-tibetan, let alone TB or ST...

>

> Ah yes, and *cir(tLi)k?u & *r-tLik?u "squirrel/weasel/mouse" (Basque

sagu

> "mouse", Burushaski c^arge "squirrel", NEC:Ingush surtq?a "weasel",
> Nostr:Kartvel:Georgian cirq?wi) which according to my not-so-perfect

notes

> is to be found in ST with a tentative reconstruction of *k-r-Lei

"squirrel"

> from a book I have no reference for...sigh.

The only word I can think of is syoX < b/lha? I think, which is used in
the modern mandarin compound song4shu3 "squirrel". This lh- is
reconstruted by some people (like Starostin) as sl-, but it is wrong
for several good reasons. This word means "rodent" in general, not
especially squirrel.
In tibetan, the word for "weasel" is sre-mo. It should be unrelated to
the chinese word according to my reconstruction, although I suspect the
form that you cite to be an unconsistent mix of unrelated word in
different languages as "tibeto-birmanists", especially in USA, are used
to do.

>
> Ah good, there it is. Maybe *-r is becoming -X, hmm. Don't have many
> examples of *-r final roots in DC yet. Perhaps I was somewhat right

in my

> guess of *nla, but more like *nlyax perhaps?

No, -r becomes -n. Want the demonstration ?

>
> Does Kachin have a prefix /ma-/ in its word for "eye"? Both *m-hutL

and

> *m-lir are under the *m-class and both are disyllabic words

contracted to a

> monosyllabic word in ST. They should undergo the same treatment in

Kachin.

> If one has a "prefix", the other should too.

Kachin has myi, which can come from mli or myi.
Oh, by the way, Ngari dialect has Xnyi < gmyi for eye. Don't know what
that means.

>
> Tibetan because I know of Cantonese /meng/. At any rate, it would

seem more
Cant. is logically predictibe from MC.

> But AC tet or tsyet? If tet, I would say that this is a problem.

It is indeed.