--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...>
wrote:
>
> I'm just teasing you militantly. My problem with V-C is that it rests
on too many houses of cards and can't really be taken too seriously for
now. Things may change in the future but IMHO the work to prove it is
only about 1% completed, if that.
>
I think you're too much pesimistic, and surely you would think I'm too
optimistic. But IMHO, Starostin's work, once properly revised, might
account for 50% or even more.
> Nostratic rests on much stronger and many fewer "houses of cards."
While much more work needs to be done, it seems much more likely than
not, although the work is still somewhere between 10-25% completed IMHO.
But I'm speaking subjectively. Once Indo-Uralic and Altaic are squared
away as valid nodes, I think it will be on its way to general
acceptance, but that's a lot of work.
>
The problem with Nostratic theories is their reliance in the traditional
PIE model, which is itself flawed. Fortunately, Nostratic research can
help us to reconstructing the real PIE, whose chronology is actually
older than the one proposed for "Proto-Nostratic".