25-11-03 16:00, tgpedersen wrote:
> You're probably right. So, the proper theory is then, that as the
> domesticated dog passed out of SE Asia from one linguistic community
> to the next, the languages of those communities did not borrow words
> similar to *kwon along with the dog, but decided independently to use
> words similar to *kwon for that particular trade article, presumably
> for onomatopoeic reasons, since dogs go "kwon, kwon" in erh, some
> language?
Torsten,
First of all, if we accept the results of the study you referred to
(and, mind you, there have been other studies giving different results,
and the case is far from closed, so how about leaving some room for
uncertainty), the genetic lineages in question started in SE Asia some
15,000 years ago. Any word coined that long ago would stand little
chance of retaining any detectable surface similarity to its original
shape. Talking of similarities, however, the alleged popularity of
"kwon" as a term for 'dog' in various language families is a myth. It's
only when you start cheating, relaxing your criteria until "kwon" and,
say, Semitic *kalb count as similar, that you create the impression of a
long trail of "kwons" starting in SE Asia. And of course you simply
ignore all inconvenient material. Where do Proto-Uralic *ämpV,
Proto-Austronesian *wasu, Proto-Slavic *pIsU, etc. come from, according
to your "same trade article, same name" model? Similarities are easy to
_make_ if your mode of thinking is sufficiently wishful. For example,
how about combining *wasu and *pIsU into *BVsu, where *B is a labial and
*V is a vowel? Maybe I shouldn't be putting such ideas into your head.
It's already full of images of men in boats (to say nothing of the dog).
Piotr