Odp: [tied] Re: House and City

The Quechua words for "five" and "six" are <pisca> and <soqta> (cf. Aymara <phisca> and <suxta>). In Chacobo, a Panoan language, the words for "two" and "three" are <dávita> and <téreshen>. The proto-Miwok word for "three" is reconstructed as *tel.o- ... Many other such examples could be given. What are our numerals doing in the Americas?

:))

Piotr

----- Original Message -----

From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 2:26 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: House and City

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001 11:31:47 -0000, tgpedersen@... wrote: [stuff about Austronesian, or was it Austric?] While I don't believe a word of this whole Oppenheimer-Manansala stuff, it's still interesting to note that in 1840, Franz Bopp, one of the fathers of Indo-European studies (although pre-Junggrammatiker) published an article where he advocated a (genetic) relationship between Indo-European and Malayo-Polynesian. I have never read that, so I cannot say exactly what his idea was based on, but one can make an educated guess that the numerals had something to do with it. Austronesian forms such as <duwa> "2" (PAN *dewsa) and <teru> "3" (PAN *telu) certainly strike the imagination, and Bopp thought he was on to something, just like he (justly) thought to be on to something when he noted (as one of the first) the similarities between the Sanskrit and Greek, Latin, Persian and Germanic conjugation systems. Nowadays, of course, these similarities are thought to be mere coincidences, but about a year ago I found something strange. I was reading up on Ancient Egyptian in Schenkel's "Einführung", and came to the chapter on the numerals. The Egyptian for "four" was <jfdw> (*/?Vft.aw/ < *<?-p.-t.->). Schenkel compares this with forms like Somali <afar> "4", and Beja <fad.ig> "4". I might add Chadic (Hausa) <f(w)ud.u> "4". The interesting thing is that Schenkel next compares Semitic <?arba3-> "4", from *<?arp.aG->, and by metathesis and (irregular) *t. > r, ultimately from a PAA prototype like *<?Vp.t.-VGu> (> AEg. <?afd.aw>, Somali <afar>) or *<p.Vt.-VGu> (> Beja <fad.ig>, Hausa <fud.u>). At the time, I was thinking about the possibility that cases of Germanic *f/*b, besides general PIE *kw, might reflect a PIE phoneme *pw, so a hypothetical *<pwetwor-> "four" (**putVwa:r-) fit right in with this PAA form *<p.Vt.VGu>. And so did PAA *c^VlVc^- (PSem *t_ala:t_-) "three", if from **tila[:]ti-, in view of PIE *trey-, where the *-y might reflect palatalized *t^ (cf. the ordinal *<tr.t->) and the unacceptable cluster **tl- may have developed regularly to *tr- (so *t[^]ret^- from pre-Nullstufe **tilati-). To this, we can add Basque <hirur> "3", which can be derived from **<tilut->, and <laur> "4", possibly from **<lapt->. The amazing thing is the link with Proto Austronesian. We have *<telu> "3", and *<xepate> "4". The *x is a reconstructed sound that mostly goes to zero, /h/ or glottal stop, but appears as /s/, /s^/ or /l/ in the Taiwanese languages. Maybe it was a fricative lateral, which is interesting, considering Basque <laur> "4" < *<lapt->. Now relations between PIE and PAA, whether genetic or involving the mere borrowing of numerals, are not surprising (think of *septm). Basque is not terribly surprising either ("6" and "7" in Basque are <sei> (*<s^ei>) and <zazpi> (< *sasbi)). But what the hell are PAA/PIE numerals doing in Taiwan? I have no explanation. I'll accept "coincidence". ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv@...