Re: Asian migration to Scandinavia

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Tavi" <oalexandre@...> wrote:

> If you look carefully at data
> <http://newstar.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/si\
> ntib/stibet&text_number=2591&root=config> , you'll see that Sinitic has
> an extra /n/ not found in Tibeto-Burman. This made me suspicious they're
> actually two different words, one for TB and another for Sinitic. And
> while the former is related to the NEC word for 'dog', I think the
> latter evolved from an older root designating some kind of carnivore and
> represented by Yeniseian *ku:n´ (~ g-) 'wolverine' and NEC
> *h\n@:q'q'w@: (~ *h\q'q'w@:n@) 'mouse, rat'.

Matisoff puts forward two suggestions in his Handbook of Tibeto-Burman. One is that the -n is a collective suffix, and the other that Chinese derives from a different PTB word, albeit possibly related, *kywal 'wild dog, dhole'.

Richard.

>
> Interestingly, Altaic has a possible cognate *pHjun[e]
> <http://newstar.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/al\
> t/altet&text_number=1803&root=config> 'a small wild animal' (with
> reduction of the initial labiovelar cluster), from which another 'dog'
> word has developed: Uralic *pene, Kartvelian (Megrel) pin-.
>