Re: [tied] Digest Number 322

Did he indeed? There's an odd twist to it: "Altaic: Old Japanese u 'egg' (Starostin, pers. comm., 1976)" (Dolgopolsky 1998).

Piotr

GJ:
That's precisely the point. Starostin claimed not to remember having made this error (which is due to the confusion of two kanji, basically), an he has never written such a thing. If the quote from Dolgopolsky you cite is from a book on Nostratic edited by Renfrew, you should find an article by Starostin (I was told, I have not read that book).

Guillaume