--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@...>
wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Richard Wordingham
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 12:30 AM
> Subject: [Courrier indésirable] [tied] Re: "As"
>
>
> >
> > ==============
> >
> > A.F
> >
> > I know Chinese reflexes to be palatal ny or plain nasal n.
> >
> > Which dialects are velar !?
> >
> > Please substantiate "include velar nasals". (Plural + velar)
R.W.
> Mark Rosenfelder gives Wu (Wenzhou) _ng 32_, Cantonese (Toishan) _ngei
> 31_, S. Min (Xiámèn) _nng 33_ (cf. E. Min (Fúzhou) lang 242) and Hakka
> (Taoyuan) ngi 55 on his famous page http://www.zompist.com/numbers.htm
> (ng = velar nasal).
>
> =================
>
> A.F
>
> This page obvious mixes two words : er4 and liang.
>
> So I would not trust this page too much.
The list is perfectly reasonable. _Liang_ 'pair' is invading the
terrotory of _er4_ in some dialects, just as cognates of _shuang1_
'pair' dominate cognates of _er4_ in Tai languages. There's another
list at
http://www.glossika.com/en/dict/vocab/numbers.htm , and it
shows the same picture.
I take it you are aware of the ongoing (at least in Cantonese) merger
n > l in Cantonese and Min. The Taipei dialect of Min lacks initial
/n/. While some of the dialects seem to show _liang_ for 'two', I
think other l*ng forms are cognates of _er4_. However, they are not
necessary for my point.
> A.F
>
> Apart from providing information,
>
> what did you want to prove from the start ?
>
> Where is this relevant as regards YueZhi being or being not
Tokharians ?
I was exploring the possible Chinese evolution of the initial sequence
*gn, which would probably have merged with any *kn except for the
effects on tone. It seems that entirely possible that Yuezhi could
reflect an initial /kn/ or /ñ/, which does not rule out the Tocharian
language. Of course, this does assume that the name was the Yuezhi's
own name for themselves, as is claimed in one account. Of course,
even this does not exclude the possibility that they adopted another
group's name as a result of shifting tribal groupings.
Richard.