> Why is it that Pumpokol _only_ has a back vowel,
> when the other languages do not ?
> This is _dirty_.
>
> A.
>
> ========
a) Pumpokol went extinct around 1750. Who knows what the precise vowel
quality was.
b) And yet, this is the observation. I will return to the problem later,
anyway.
=====
You stated this example was clear,
Now you say that we don't know what it was.
A.
======
Whether /a/ is back phonetically is not that important, but yes, it is
much further in the back than /e/ and /i/. At the same vowel height,
there is no opposition to be sure. Ok then. Let me rephrase the
descriptive rule: ALL vowels except /e/ and /i/.
=======
ok
Then,
why has Pumpokol /a/ in tat "river" when the other languages have *e ?
What is the reconstruction of that word within Yeniseic if it is a Yeniseic
word ?
A.
========
> t in Pumpokol where Ostyak and Samoyedic have t as well.
> Conservation of *s elsewhere.
> This "coincidence" is troublesome for a "spontaneous" Yeniseian
> development.
Well, whether spontaneous or contact-induced, it doesn't matter. These
things can spread across language borders.
========
funny,
but you seem to be ready to accept shared phonetic innovations
without any lexical borrowing,
i wonder how this can happen in practice.
A.
========
>
> i haven't but I'm interested to do so !
>
> A.
I'm not sure I have it. I'll try to find it though.
====
It would be nice.
A.
========
> Where's the problem, Arnaud? What I meant was that the few last bits
> of an original population, when surrounded by a majority of, say,
> Uralic speakers, would be willing to adopt the vital vocabulary in
> order to trade and, after all, survive. So, the fact that Yeniseians
> have borrowed from Uralic doesn't in itself constitute a sufficient
> proof they are not native to Siberia. They may just come from a
> different part of it or have gradually adopted to survive in the
> overwhelmingly non-Yeniseic land (whether it once was Yeniseic or
> not). Consider the situation of Basque in Iberia. Heavily romanized,
> but still, much longer there than Romance...
>
> ========
>
> Hm
> So this is the implicit premice I have mentioned before,
>
> How comes that _none_ of the languages 3000 km around Yeniseic does not
> share _any_ typological feature (Mongolian, Turcic, Korean, Uralic,
> Tungusic, Japanese, etc) ?
How come that none of the languages surrounding Basque share its
typological profile? Why has Basque not influenced Romance
considerably?
======
Because Basque is a fossil language !
A.
====
> There is no doubt that Basque is not like Indo-European, nor Berber and
> that's a major reason to think it's autochthonous.
> Yeniseian is not like Mongolian, Turcic, Korean, Uralic, Tungusic,
> Japanese,
> etc and that's a major reason to think it's _not_ autochthonous.
I don't get it.
Basque is unlike the surrounding languages, hence it is autochthonous.
Yeniseic is unlike the surrounding languages, hence it is not autochthonous.
Interesting. :-)
=======
The issue of common lexical items and common typological features also plays
a role in the location of PIE.
I suppose nobody (a little serious) would locate PIE in an area full of
languages with which PIE shares nothing.
A.
========
> Which part of Siberia could Yeniseic be native to ?
Until you prove that ALL the vocabulary relating to the Siberian
lifestyle is borrowed from the surrounding languages, Yeniseic still
can be considered as originating in Siberia.
==========
I'm sorry,
but the burden of proving Yeniseic autochthonous is on your shoulders as
well.
And your "stalinist" requirement is absurd.
You already have no argument at all.
I have already provided about 20 clean cognates between Yeniseic and PIE
and you have provided NOTHING that supports Siberian autochthony.
By the way, Maloletko who is the collector of the hydronyms we are
discussing makes Yeniseic come from the Caucasus Area.
A.
========
> All, all languages there have the same syntaxic and morphological system.
> From the Volga to the Pacific ocean.
And? This proves little.
========
These Siberian languages that have that same syntaxic and morphological
system are most probably also related.
And they have plenty of lexical items in common a well.
Yenisean is therefore not related to this "macro-Siberian" phylum.
And it's therefore not Siberian at all.
How long will you defend the absurd theory that a language can originate in
a place surrounded for 50 000 years by languages with which it shares
NOTHING but a handful of loanwords ?
A.
======