--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <swatimkelkar@>
> wrote:
>
> > Burushki [sic] languages of Pakistan has been classified as
> > Dravidian.
>
> Our friend has probably confused Burushaski with Brahui, the way
> some people confuse Sweden with Switzerland because they too
> alliterate.
Burushaski is almost certainly a member of the Dene-Caucasian
macrofamily, more closely related to the Macro-Caucasian superfamily
(a sub-division of the former, a.k.a. Vasco-Caucasian) proposed and
studied by John Bengtson. See Bengtson's latest paper dealing with
this posited language superfamily at
http://jdbengt.net/articles/burush2007.pdf
Michael Witzel has attempted to relate the languages of the BMAC
(Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, ca. 2200-1700 BCE) to this
hypothesized language superfamily; references can be provided on
request.
Always in this connection, re: the following question posed by
another listmember:
--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...>
wrote:
> Who knows anything about Karasuk? Proposed by George van Driem,
> it purports to link Burushaski and Yeniseian. I've only seen
> references to it. My understanding is that van Driem doesn't get
> into Dené-Caucasian.
I don't know of this "Karasuk" grouping, but if you need this
information, I can look in van Driem's book _Language of the
Himalayas_, which I have at home (please write me off-List for
that).
I distinctly recall that some statistical studies suggest that
Burushaski is closer to the western Dene-Caucasian language group,
whereas Yenesseian is closer to Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman.
See a map of the Dene-Caucasian macro-family at
http://starling.rinet.ru/maps/maps5.php?lan=en
Kindest regards,
Francesco