--- In nostratic@..., Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv@...> wrote:

> I prefer (to expect) neither one or the other. Wherever the facts
> point to is fine, and I do think the facts point towards a
> relationship between AA and IE[*]. What I find indeed strange
> ("suspect" in the sense of what you say above) is the little

attention

> given among Nostraticists to possible links further south. If
> Nostratic is a question of "the foot bone connected to the leg bone,
> the leg bone connected to the knee bone, the knee bone connected to
> the thigh bone, the thigh bone connected to the back bone, the back
> bone connected to the neck bone, the neck bone connected to the head
> bone, Oh, hear the word of the Lord!", as indeed it sometimes seems

to

> be the case (AA <-> PK, PK <-> PIE, PIE <-> PU, PU <-> PEA, etc.),
> then why not look for connections between (at least) PAA and PNC or
> PNS? From what little I have seen of them, they look as promising

(or

> unpromising, according to your tastes) as most of the other proposed
> Nostratic connections.
>

Yes, them dry bones... There's the Sahara to contend with.
As for the "3" *t-r- in Niger-Congo, if you are thinking of that...
Piotr tried to reduce it to a Proto-Bantu thing, but obviously it's
bigger than that. But it is not omnipresent in Niger-Congo, it occurs
in some languages and not in others; and isn't that the situation
you'd see if that term were borrowed? Suppose Japanese would fall
apart in dialects, wouldn't we expect native Japanese and borrowed
Chinese numerals to survive in different dialects?
And of course my strange idea: if Malayo-Polynesians could make it to
Madagascar (then or later), could they navigate around Africa (the
Phoenicians could)? Wouldn't a trading system leave numerals? And
could it get from there to the Mediterranean?

A general remark: why is it, that in order to be recognized, a
proposed lingustic influence between two geographical areas should
have a land border to cross? Were all peoples so primitive then that
they had to walk on their flat feet?

Torsten