Re: Basque/Georgian

Concerning the Nostratic family and phylogeny (in relation to IE :), John is
mostly correct in understanding my view. The following would be more
accurate.

|-------------------------------- Afro-Asiatic
|
|-------------------------------- Kartvelian
Nostratic -|
| |------------------- Sumerian
| |
| ||------------------ Elamite
| ||
| |||----------------- Dravidian
| |||
|-Eurasiatic---| |-------- Altaic
| |
| |-------- Gilyak
| |
| | |---- Uralic-Yukaghir
| |---|
|-Steppe-| |---- Eskimo-Aleut
| |
| |---- Chuckchi-Kamchatkan
|
|-------- Indo-Etruscan

Kartvelian shares unique similarities with AfroAsiatic on the one hand, but
other unique similarities only with Eurasiatic. This leads me to believe
that there were originally three branches with varying isoglosses. Thus,
Kartvelian to the north, AfroAsiatic to the southwest and Eurasiatic to the
southeast somewhere in Anatolia thereabouts, forming an inverted triangle
that has absolutely nothing to do with symbols for lesbian pride.

The placement of ChuckK is uncertain as is Gilyak until I can better inform
myself on their linguistic characteristics. I am certain however that Gilyak
has something to do with Steppe and with Nostratic. Uralic-Yukaghir and
Eskimo-Aleut agree on reducing a previous unvoiced-lax/unvoiced-tense/voiced
stop distinction in Steppe to simple voiceless stops (at least in initial
position). Altaic is on its own due to its unique phonological developments
that apparently no one has bothered noticing.

Dravidian may or may not be part of a subgrouping like Elamo-Dravidian but
what's clear is that Dravidian, Elamite and Sumerian are residue from the
movement of Steppe from the Fertile Crescent and have special archaic
features that Steppe had lost. The change of ergative to accusative must
have taken place at some point when Steppe was moving to its northeasterly
locale but definitely before Elamite had split. Thus the change would have
been approximately 12,000-9,000 BCE. The question is whether Sumerian can
say anything about the "accusativeness" of Eurasiatic *-m(a).

IndoEtruscan had split from Steppe early on, developing its own special
features. In fact, the declensional system of IndoEtruscan and that of
Uralic-Yukaghir or Altaic are not directly related... but more on that
later. (Pause for suspense...)

On a side note, this is my view of DeneCaucasian in relation to Nostratic
and other languages:

|------- NigerK
|-SinoDene---------|
| |------- Nostratic (you are here)
| |
DeneCauc. -| |------- Buru-Yen
| |
| |------- NWC
| |
| |------- Sino-Tibetan
| |
| |------- Na-Dene
|
|
| |------- Vasconic (Basque)
|-VascoCaucasian---|
|------- NEC
|
|------- Hurro-Urartean
|
|------- Hattic


Thank you, thank you. Please, no applause :P

- gLeN



______________________________________________________