Odp: [tied] Re: Warning to list: Race and anthropology

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

From: Anthony Appleyard

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, April 09, 2001 1:02 PM

Subject: [tied] Re: Warning to list: Race and anthropology

> Is there a rule against the word "Caucasian", or not? This word is asterisked out in one message title in the new Nostratic list! <snip>

 

By no means! It was just a little post-crisis joke we played to relieve the tension. It has lasted a little longer than necessary. The point was that if we use it, some racist freaks looking for White Supremacy pages might zero in on our list by feeding words like "Caucasian", "Aryan", etc. into their search engines. The word "Caucasian" (like "Aryan") has its perfectly legitimate technical uses.

 

> Back to topic: How closely related are the Caucasian languages? Are there any isolates or near-isolates among them? How much has their native vocabulary been drowned by words taken from neighboring imperial or cultural languages?

The "Caucasian languages" is a purely geographical designation. The term embraces three small-to-medium-size local families restricted to the region of the Caucasus (Kartvelian, NW Caucasian [= Abkhazo-Adyghian], NE Caucasian [= Nakho-Dagestanian]) as well as several Turkic and IE languages of the region (e.g. Ossetic)

 

Piotr