Re: Re[4]: [tied] searching for common words for all today's langua

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

From: Miguel Carrasquer

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 2:45 PM

Subject: Re: Re[4]: [tied] searching for common words for all today's languages

On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 14:33:42 -0600, Patrick Ryan
<proto-language@...> wrote:

>  Bengtson, as far as I know, was _only_ interested in showing that Basque was a Caucasian language - it had nothing to do with proto-world etyma. If you have different, verifiable, information, why not produce it? Otherwise, stop repeating it.

The "Global Etymologies" article was co-written by John D.
Bengtson and Merritt Ruhlen.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...

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Patrick:

 

It is one co-authored article in a book written by Ruhlen. It is hardly the major thrust of Bengtson's work. Google will tell you Bengtson's main interests.

 

 

Ruhlen's and Bengtson's purpose, as they explain in the article, is

 

broad classification

 

as a basis for _later_ detailed historical linguistics among the families identified.

 

No regular correspondence tables are attempted or even hinted.

 

In fact, they are specifically disavowed at this preliminary stage.

 

Thus, they are doing on a limited (number of examples) global scale what Greenberg did in Africa and the Americas.

 

This has nothing to do with my work, which is a serious attempt (whether failed or no) at historical linguistics.

 

If we keep up this discussion, it should be transferred to Nostratic-L.

 

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