Re: Can relationships between languages be determined after 80,000 y

You are right, in my opinion.

I think the problem stems from the variability of reflexes in the
non-Semitic PA languages. Most reconstructionists have attributed these to
separate PA phonemes which fused in Semitic but I suspect the variability is
in the early non-Semitic dialects, and are due to phonological rather than
originally phonemic processes.

Patrick

----- Original Message -----
From: "etherman23" <etherman23@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 11:17 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Can relationships between languages be determined after
80,000 years?


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
> It is amazing to me how the connections that I theorized from Arabic
and
> Egyptian are falling into place with Afrasian (Hamito-Semitic).
>
> I often wonder, even with the flawed work of some Nostraticists, how
anyone
> can possibly doubt the genetic relationship between PIE and PA.

Probably because there isn't a decent reconstruction of PAA yet.