Gerry wrote
> Some folks are trying to link Burushaski with the American Indian
> languages of Hopi (1st, 2nd and 3rd mesas in Arizona), Luseno (in
the LA
> to San Diego area) and Mattole (an Athabaskan language family
spoken
in
> NW CA. If you're interested I have a contact I can provide. Just
> because Burushaski is located in the Hindu-Kush at the juncture of
I-E,
> Sino-Tibetan, and Altaic language families doesn't mean that's where
> Burushaski origins lie.
I have seen some evidence (Glen has also reported on it) that links
Burushaski with the Yenesei (Ket) language of Siberia. Glen places
it
as a sub-family within Dene Caucasian. If he is correct in placing
Niger Kordofanian in the Dene Caucasian macrophylum along with the
other languages that are usually placed there (Sino-Tibetan,
Cacasian,
Basque, Na-Dene etc) then Dene Caucasian is a language family that
started splitting at least 40,000 years ago (and you saw how little
of
common vocabulary survives that length of time (from my
Glottochronology post). If Ket-Burushaski holds up, and if there is
a
Dene-Caucasian link, then Burushaski and the Na-Dene languages you
mention (Hopi, Athabaskan-Mattole) should have a very distant
(possibly 8,000 year old connection, as that is the date that
archaeology/genetics gives for the arrival of the Na Denepeoples in
North America). That is a better chance for language survivals. The
split from Burushaski-Ket could have then been about 10-12,000 years
ago, and may be associated with the post Ice-Age Holocene warming.
Interesting work, although I don't know how it connects to IE
studies.
Personally I feel that the split between Burushaski and Ket-Yenesei
was due to pressure from the west by Nostratic paleo-Altaics with a
mesolithic culture (Dene-Caucasians were probably specialist Upper
Paleolithic hunter-gatherers). This ties in both archaeologically
and
genetically.
Hope this helps
Regards
John