Miguel and Guillaume s'en discute entre eux:

>> Ce mot n'a pas pour sens originel 'un'. C'est d'ailleurs >>probablement
>>un emrpunt au chinois (comme l'ensemble des numeraux du >>Tibetain).
>
>That's a far-reaching hypothesis. What about the numerals in Karen,
>Burmese etc.?

Between both Miguel and Guillaume, there appear to be MANY
far-reaching/fetched hypotheses that fail to take into account all the
variables and further would make the answer much more complicated than it
need be.

The idea that East Asia was somehow unaffected by the affairs of the west,
even in re of this early time in the Neolithic, sounds far too sinocentric
to be taken seriously. Even Pat can see that so it must be obvious. I also
feel that the overuse of "borrowing" in a theory tends to get monotonous and
anti-Occam. Tibetan borrows everything from Chinese, NWC/NEC borrows
everything from Chinese/ST, yadayadayada... There's a point at which
speculation just becomes opinion for the sake of opinion.

What strikes me the most disconcerting is how this theory flies against the
most credible theories so far available to us and doesn't help to explain
the archaeological record. NEC is known to have affinities to HurroUrartian
- would you protest? If NEC is from Central Asia at a late date, things get
quite counterlogical - this is why NEC could never come from Central Asia -
it is autochthonous to the Caspian environs. NWC in central asia yes, NEC in
central asia absolutely not.

Finally, in this scheme, everything is pouring out of Central Asia as if we
were dealing with some sort of demic explosion (but such a thing doesn't
exist) - NWC, NEC, IndoTyrrhenian, even Uralic-Yukaghir perhaps all coming
from the same area... unless you guys wish to further go off on a wild goose
chase and not only ignore the above facts but also to ignore Bomhard's
realistic scheme of the dispersal of Eurasiatic and instead drive Eurasiatic
north through the Caucasus (gasp!) as they step right through
Kartvelo-VascoCaucasic land unchanged.

Here's a way better idea that DOESN'T conflict with the archaeological
record:

NWC and SinoTibetan derive from a Central Asian SinoDene, a two-vowel
language with an accent on the second syllable (not second-to-last like
IndoTyrrhenian BTW). Steppe was mostly to the west of it as well as
intermingled with it. Steppe and SinoDene, being hunter-gatherer languages,
both had an extensive but actively mobile territory to begin with.

Only SinoDene's NWC and Steppe's IndoTyrrhenian spread casually westward to
the Caucasus starting c.10,000-9,000 BCE whereupon, lo and behold,
IndoTyrrhenian becomes a two-vowel language from areal influence. NWC and
IndoTyrrhenian finally saunter by their resting place by 7000 BCE only to
find NEC already there to the south nestled in the Black-Caspian region,
itself derived from an East Anatolian area just a couple of millenia back.
IndoTyrrhenian takes the north areas of the Black Sea and NWC settles south
towards NEC in the Caucasus, thereby changing the direction of cultural flow
which is actually attested in the archaeological record by Kosko.

What's the moral, boy's and girls? Both NEC and NWC _inherited_ their
numerals from a very ancient language because hunter-gatherers aren't stupid
heathens and _do_ know how to count arrowheads afterall.

The End.

- gLeN

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