[tied] Re: 'Dog' revisited

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "ehlsmith" <ehlsmith@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>

wrote:

> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "ehlsmith" <ehlsmith@...> wrote:
> .....
> > > Hi Torsten- Yes, that is one possibility, but there are several
> > > others too.
> > > (1) the roots may reflect a proto-world term for a wild canine,
> > > predating the domestication of dogs (not that I am really
> > advocating
> > > this solution)
> > > (2) the roots in PAA, PIE and PFU may reflect a common

Nostratic

> > > root, or early borrowing; examples from other languages may be
> > > coincidence.
> >
> > Why not the other way around? Why the tendency to dismiss things
> > outside the sphere of order that we constructed for ourselves as
> > noise?
>
> Hi Torsten- because the odds favor that approach. While there is
> certainly more reality outside our sphere of order, there is a

hugely

> greater amount of noise. There are many, many more things which
> _might be- true, but are not, than there are things which _are_

true.

> If we didn't demand to see impeccable credentials before admitting

an

> outsider into our sphere it would soon be crammed full of

plausible,

> but unreal, beliefs.

I don't think this is a question of method, but of attitude. While I
might agree with you politically (and have disagreed with you in
better times), I don't linguistically.

> >
> > What exactly _is_ cherry-picking, and why is it inadmissible? The
> way
> > I see it used is as a reproach that the other did not account for
> non-
> > cognates in similar language, or didn't account for other words

in

> > the same language. I'd like to hear a definition. Until then,

I'll

> > keep ignoring reproaches using that term.
>
> The way I was using it was to mean picking out similar sounding

terms

> and not accounting for there overall frequency. It would be one

thing

> to say "We have located over 100 [or whatever number] terms for dog
> which begin with K-v-R in various languages throughout the world,
> surely that cannot be due only to chance" and another thing to

say "A

> search of databases containing terms from 2,079 languages reveals

104

> terms for dogs, breeds of dogs, or related canids which begin with

K-

> v-R. Analysis of the databases reveals that those 2,079 languages
> contributed on average 3.718 terms for dogs, dog breeds, and

related

> canids. Statistical analysis indicates that the probability of this
> result being due to chance is ..."

No one uses statistics that way within a recognised language group.
Ten years ago your argument might have been used against Nostratic,
now it isn't, which is another way of calling it ephemeral.

>
> As to forced
> > reconstructions, most glosses used by mass-comparisoners are not
> > reconstructions.
>
> Then the argument is even weaker- instead of comparing the number

of

> supposed cognates with a small number of language families then it
> has to be compared with over 5000 languages. This just makes it

more

> likely the "cognates" are pure chance. And what criteria do they

use

> to determine a semantic match? If, as I suggested above, they

include

> names for particular breeds then their examples are plucked from an
> even bigger pool [Heck, if they even allow for the accural of an
> occasional prefix over the millenia, then they can include coCKER
> spaniel in their "cognates"]
>

Personally, I've mostly left out New World cognates, since I know
next to nothing about their development. Other than that I've used
Møller's IE-Semitic and Bomhard's Nostratic etymologies (on the
assumption that some of them are loans) plus Austronesian (not all
proto-, true) and Proto-Bantu. You don't get back much further than
that.

> > >
> > > I see now- a conjectural etymology
> >
> > As opposed to what kind of etymology?
>
> As opposed to a generally accepted etymology

Which all began as conjectural etymologies.

>
> > >+ unproven sociological speculation + >
>
> > As opposed to what kind of sociological speculation?
>
> As opposed to well-established sociological data
>
> > >the theoretical possibility of 100 mile canoe trips =
> > > evidence that Austronesian sailors traded dogs from Taiwan to
> > Europe
> > > c. 10,000-12,500 BCE
> >
> > That would have been Sundaland then.
>
> I stand corrected- from the portion of Sundaland which later bacame
> Taiwan and its adjoining waters.
> >
> > >(and came back to drop off pigs c. 8,000 years
> > > later) ;-)
> > >
> > > "Long" is a relative term. In relation to the distance from SE
> Asia
> > > to North Africa or Europe, the trip across the Strait of

Formosa

> is
> > > not long-distance. (And has it even been established that there
> > were
> > > voyages between the mainland and Taiwan until the Neolithic?
> Could
> > > earlier occupations have resulted from crossings when sealevels
> > > allowed travel by foot?)
> >
> > Look at your Atlas. Just about every sea in those parts is light
> > blue, less than 100 m deep.
>
> I actually did look at an atlas before I wrote that to verify the
> depth. What has that to do with my question though? I asked if

there

> was evidence of voyages to Taiwan before the Neolithic?

At the time of low water, Taiwan was highland, relatively. Why should
the inhabitants of the river plain go there? The way I see it, the
Austronesian speakers of Taiwan are refugees from the floods.

>Your comment
> merely reaffirms the premise of my question. Occupation of Taiwan
> between the time of the rise of sealevels and the arrival of
> neolithic settlers by sea could have resulted from earlier foot
> travel.
>
> > But even when the Strait of Taiwan was supposedly dry land, there
> > would have been a large river in the middle.
>
> I meant _sea_ voyages.
>
>
> >
> > >As for the "either-or" I don't disagree (I'm
> > > sure that on occasion dogs were bartered, even if not
> > > transcontinentally) but the question is what does your

hypothesis

> > > explain which cannot be explained by the Nostratic hypothesis?
> > >
> >
> ...
> > For one thing, how an article that was invented outside the area

of

> > Nostratic came to have a name in Nostratic similar to the names
> used
> > outside it.
>
> More accurately- how it came to have a name similar to _some_ of

the

> names used outside it. But if for the sake of discussion I were to
> concede your point, then my question would be what would your
> hypothesis explain which could not be explained by Proto-World?

Proto-World would have been much older than the domestication of
dogs. The first emigration out of Africa followed the coast of
Southern Asia. Dogs being domesticated in East Asia would have to
have gone the opposite way. In other words, for a *k-n-, *k-l-
etc "dog" word to be Proto-World, dogs would have had to be
domesticated for the first time in Africa.

>I'm
> certainly no devotee of Proto-World, but if confronted with a

choice

> of just that or the "transcontinental canine trading paleolithic
> proto-austronesian canoe paddler" hypothesis I am not sure which

one

> Brother Oakham would start shaving.
>

I haven't proposed these people bartered dogs. I think they brought
them with them. Maybe they gave away a puppy or two to the natives?
And the alternative theory is that of people on a boat or raft
getting lost at sea in a global flood ending up some godforsaken
place, where they could play Robinson to the inhabitants?


Torsten