--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
>
> > ... But another thing struck me, and this is the reason I used it
on my website: 78% (as I later calculated it) of the Sanskrit roots
of the comparisons he makes are descended from roots I had seen
earlier on the IE side in the root pairs in Møller's comparison of IE
and AfroAsiatic. Now how the heck did Manansala arrive at that? He
doesn't show any interest in AfroAsiatic (or IE, for that matter). He
probably never read Møller. And even if he had, and had secretly
followed a list of Møller's IE-AA "cognates" (probably loans, there
are just a few hundred), how could he come up with up to a hundred
(at least) similar-sounding Austronesian roots for those pairs? I
found it puzzling.
>
> I don't know the answer to the first question. Perhaps, quite
simply, it's easier than you imagine to match any simple (and often
pretty general) meaning with one or another of "a few hundred" items
found in Møller. It is not difficult to answer the second question.
Manansala does not quote "Austronesian roots" but only words selected
ad hoc from miscellaneous AN languages (plus, from time to time,
other languages of SE Asia and the Pacific). If you reflect that the
AN family accounts for ca. 20% of the world's languages, it's clear
that their combined lexicons are practically infinite. It's easy to
misuse that infinity. Take any Sanskrit (or Finnish, or Quechua) word
and something similar in terms of meaning and sound _will_ be found
sooner or later somewhere in the vast AN material if you search hard
enough.
"The combined lexicons of the AN languages"? "Words selected ad hoc"?
In what way does this methodological criticism differ form what might
have been raised against Rask and Grimm? This is pretty lame, Piotr.
Frankly, I'm disappointed.
>
> > There is only one way for that to have happened. The only
question then is: Did they forget every single word on the journey?
Dog? Pig? But if one or two words can make the trip, where's the
limit?
>
> One would need to show first that the "dog" and "pig" words made
the trip. Skt. kurkura is a loan from Dravidian, but who says it's
Austronesian? The superficially similar words (<kuri> etc.) cited by
Manansala all come from several Oceanic languages (most of them
Polynesian) and represent a "local" innovation.
"Local" to what?
The PAN word for 'dog' was *wasu. Skt. vara:ha- looks slightly more
promising at first glance, but its primary meaning is 'wild boar'
(PAN *babuy) rather than 'domestic pig' (PAN *beRek).
Benveniste would disagree w.r.t. the age of the distinction
wild/domesticated pig:
"
from Emile Benveniste: IndoEuropean Language and Society
It is usually held that:
1) IE *porko- (Latin porcus) denotes the domestic pig as opposed to
the wild animal, *su:- (Latin su:s);
2) The dialect distribution of *porko- leads to the conclusion that
only the European tribes prictised pig-breeding.
However, a careful examination shows
1) that in all languages, and particularly in Latin, wherethe
opposition *su:-:*porko- was maintained, both these terms applied to
the domesticated species, *porko- designating the piglet as opposed
to the adult *su:-;
2) that *porko- is in fact also attested in the oriental part of the
Indo-European world. Consequently pig-breeding must be attributed to
the Indo-Europeans, but it was eliminated at an early date in India
and Iran.
"
Don't forget Latin verre:s "pig", either.
BTW *su-, both in the sense of "one's own (family)" and "adult pig,
(sow?)" is represented in Manasala's material too.
>
> > And as for the trick of denigrating an opinion because the man
who holds other opinions that are patently wrong, I've hitch-hiked
too much to fall for that. Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone is
right at least to some degree. That is my basic outlook, and I don't
think I will change that.
>
> Just to what significant degree is Manansala right? No-one's
denigrating him as a human being. But as an author of linguistic
essays he's done enough harm to his own reputation.
>
> Piotr
Accepting people's opinion or not based on their respective
reputations is something I outgrew some decades back. Why not try an
unbiased personal assessment of the idea instead?
Torsten