From: Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
Message: 68661
Date: 2012-02-29
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"Exactly: PTB
> <richard.wordingham@...> 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'.
>>
> I see both suggestions as doubious. I must insist that the
> archaeological data makes East Asia as one of the places were dogs were
> first domesticated, so the logical conclusion is the word originated
> there.
>
>
>