The quote was from Dolgopolsky's 1998
_Nostratic Macrofamily and Linguistic Palaeontology_ (with an enthusiastic
introduction by Renfrew), but I have the other book as well (Renfrew &
Nettle [eds.]. 1999. _Nostratic: Examining a Linguistic Macrofamily_, with
the same enthusiastic intro by Renfrew). Here's what Starostin actually
says there (small print, in a table): "The Old Japanese u 'egg', cited
according to my own personal communication in 1976, is unfortunately a
misunderstanding: I must have confused the character."
Alexander Vovin clarifies the details:
"Under no. 72 ... we find Old Japanese u 'egg', that, I am afraid, simply does
not exist. Dolgopolsky refers to personal communication with Starostin in 1976,
but I suspect the latter was mislead by two very similar Chinese characters:
<...> that has a reading u 'hare' (only as the fourth of the zodiac
signs, contraction [sic] of Middle Japanese usagi 'hare') and <...> tamago
'egg'. Unfortunately, two dots inside the second character make all the
difference."
In the same volume, Bomhard reviews the
"egg" etymology and says: "The Old Japanese form should be removed." He also
notes that the cited Arabic word (see below) is isolated within Semitic.
Notwithstanding all these petty problems, he opines that "this is a very
attractive etymology" and goes on to reconstruct his own version of
Dolgopolsky's "egg, white of egg" (they mean "egg white").
Finally, Alan S. Kaye demolishes the Arabic evidence. "I could not find any
attestation of the cited ?awh_ or ?a:h_ 'egg white' in Syro-Lebanese Arabic.
Seven native speakers consulted have never heard it. They all used baya:d.
ilbe:d.a or ilbaya:d." He gives several other examples of ghost forms and ghost
meanings in Dolgopolsky's Afroasiatic comparanda.
And all the King's horses, and all the King's men
Can't scrape all this egg white together again.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 7:27 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Digest Number 322
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