Re: [tied] kinship systems

From: Danny Wier
Message: 2880
Date: 2000-07-27

--- Dan Jones <yl-ruil@2crfm.net> wrote:

> Although the debate has been sleeping for a month or so, I came up
> with a
> question. We have a reconstructed PIE kinship system, is there a
> Nostratic
> one? Do we have any kinship terms at all, and if so what? I know this
> should
> be posted to a Nostratic List, but Nostratic has been discussed here
> before
> and, quite frankly, the people here seem friendlier than on
> Nostratic-L,
> from what I've heard!

Nostratic-L went to hell in a handbag. This list is MUCH better. Even
though it's *supposed to be* an IE list. (And the sister list
Indoeuropean-L sucked too. The moderator was a real poopyhead, a real
uptight censor who edited or blocked posts he didn't ike.)

The short list in the Dolgopolsky book has these Nostratic
reconstructions:

k�lu (-�) "female in-law"
k�da "male in-law"
s�esa "father- or son-in-law" (C� = palatal)
Hw�n`- "brother- or son-in-law" (C` = retroflex)
nus'- "woman, wife"
hic�x- "father, husband"
'edin- "lord, owner", "husband" ('= glottal stop)
'ema "mother"
'�y- "mother, woman" (nursery word)
'aba, ?ap'a "father, daddy" (nursery word)
"oq'ul- "child, son/daughter; to beget, bear" (" = voiced pharyngeal;
C' = ejective)
'ar- "member of clan, relative"

Apparently, the primitive peoples of Mesopotamia were exogamous, since
the "in-law" terms are referent to non-relatives (outside the clans).

117.

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