--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "David Russell Watson"
<liberty@...> wrote:
>
> Nostratic started out as an attempt to find common origin
> with Semitic languages. Semitic and Egyptian are Afrasian-
> derived languages.
>
> I gave you a link to the essay at my website which "proves"
> the connection. Did you even look?
No, it's the job of Nostraticists to look. Whenever it is
announced through the linguist grape vine that a Patrick
Ryan has come out with a convincing Nostratic theory, then
I will take it into consideration. It's not important to
me to be one of the first to witness the birth of something
great. I'm more than happy to wait for others to check
things out first so that I don't waste too much of my own
time on dead ends.
You argue from the position that many of your ideas are
already proven and accepted, but personally I just don't
see that as realistically being the case.
> When you do, you will see roof is there. Also, there is Bomhard,
> who uses a slightly different set of correspondences but also
> arrives at a 'proof'.
Alright then, where can I find a description of this Proto-
Afro-Asiatico(?)-Indo-European? Where are the tables of
sound correspondences laid out? Where are the tables of
conjugations and declensions? Where are the series of sound
changes described that gave rise to each descendant of this
proto-language? As I've hinted, I'm not interested in helping
you to formulate your Nostratic theory, if I were I would
participate on Nostratic-L. If you want your Nostratic
theory to influence my own view of P.I.E., then it is up
to you to make a proper case for it, and to make that case
somewhere else in fact, and only then come back.
> > You don't still believe that you can reconstruct the
> > first human language, do you?
You didn't answer this one.
> > Well that would be somewhat of a job, and moreover not
> > properly a job for me. I joined a list for Indo-European
> > linguistics, while yours is a question of Nostratics.
>
> Well, if you want to learn all there is to know about PIE,
> you must go beyond PIE to other comparisons.
One can construct a proto-language out of any two languages
assumed cognates, only that reconstruction won't reflect
reality if the two languages haven't been proven related by
other means. I will give you a connection to Afro-asiatic,
simply because some respectable members of this list don't
seem to doubt it, and because I personally just don't know
enough about it to say, but I do know that Sumerian has most
certainly not been properly connected to any other known
language.
> Internal reconstruction only takes us halfway.
Halfway where? This topic of this list isn't Proto-Nostratic,
remember?
> If you are unwilling to do that, then some of the most
> interesting aspects of PIE will remain ever hidden to you.
I'm fairly certain that most of these interesting aspects
that you claim are phantoms arising out of your improper
methodology.
> I think your recollection is a bit unbright.
"Unbright"? You like to coin new words, eh?
> I never have said or written anything like "penis - bright -
> bright - make". Where do you think you got that?
Please see
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/39403 ,
where you wrote
> The first element I would propose to identify in the four words
> designating members of the nuclear family is *H2éH2{e}-ter, 'fire',
> itself a compound (a reduplication of **H2e-, '**bright' [cf. 4.
> *a:y-, 'burn'] + 3. *ter-, '*make' [cf. Gk. toreía, 'preparation
> of embossed work in stone or metal']).
and
> If combined with *bheH2r-, 'what protrudes, **male genital', we
> obtain *bhar- + *á:tr.-, which would give *bhrá:tr.-, 'male part
> of the family'. To connect it with 1. *bher- is rather too broad.
> What, pray tell, did the primeval son 'carry'?
and so "penis - bright - bright - make". Although I suppose
that the male _genitals_ ('genital' is an adjective) include
(ideally) more than just the penis, and so even though I don't
buy 'male genital' < 'what protrudes', I am willing to amend
it to "male genitals - bright - bright - make".
Actually, I'm going to have to let go of your "genitals" and
your "breasts" right now before I become tempted to get silly
with them. (I once shaved Torsten's beaver, you know?)
> > That's significant though, because even if you both agree
> > that Sumerian is Nostratic, your two voices don't constitute
> > cumulative support of that when you differ in your actual
> > reconstructions.
>
> Excuse me, but that is ridiculous.
No that's simple logic.
> If I say I like vanilla ice cream for the color, and another says
> he likes it for the flavor, we can both be said to find vanilla
> ice cream desirable.
Your claim is that since both Bomhard and Ryan believe in the
cognacy of Sumerian and P.I.E., that it must be so. However we
have agreed that it is the quality of the argument itself and
nothing else that matters, have we not? So if you and Bomhard
are making the same argument, it amounts to _one_ argument, and
one argument made no better simply because two share it. If on
the other hand you and Bomhard make different arguments, they
cancel each other out in so far as they differ.
> Ah, subjective. A pig is a pig, and Marilyn Monroe is Marilyn
> Monroe.
To me, Marilyn Monroe, with here flat turned-up nose centered
midway between here eyes and mouth (instead of being closer to
her mouth as is necessary to be beautiful) did somewhat resemble
a pig in the face. I don't really find her attractive at all.
Of course there is the fact too, that regardless of how she may
have looked, Monroe was a basket case, making your analogy some-
what apt, because you ought to be more concerned with the content
of your posts, which leaves something to be desired, rather than
the mere appearance.
> The appreciation of beauty is built into every healthy human
> being, and has genetic commonality thoughout the world.
Well I never found your posts particularly beautiful, I'm afraid,
and precisely because they were so poorly formatted. There is
beauty in efficiency, brevity, conciseness, and clarity, is there
not? I'm not sure how you thought that HTML covered for the lack
of these.
David