--- In nostratic@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> First of all, Bantu and Niger-Congo don't have the same status,

even approximately. Bantu is a bona fide family, while Niger-Congo is
a loose cluster of a rather large number of families (including
Bantu), established on the basis of typological similarities. No-one
has yet demonstrated its genetic unity using generally accepted
methods. _If_ it is real, then Bantu is just a subbranch of a
subbranch of a subbranch in one of its branches. However, it's quite
likely that the term "Niger-Congo" does not refer to a valid
linguistic taxon at all.

>

True. So?

> You point to many /tVr-/ forms for "three" in (so-called) Niger-

Congo laguages, but without analysing the comparative correspondences
in a rigorous way you can't show that there was an old *tVr- word
there, let alone deriving it from AN *telu. In fact, you quote rather
selectively, choosing the forms that suit your suggestion but
conveniently ignoring a number of /tat-/ forms in Niger-Congo. For
example, in the Duru family (Cameroon, Nigeria) we have Sari tatu and
Kotopo ta~to beside Sewe taare and Vere tariko.

>
> As I have pointed out before, the frequent change of intervocalic *-

t- into -d-, -l- or -r- in Bantu is a well-known fact; and many of
the Bantu languages enjoy local or regional prestige, serving as
means of wider communication. Even if Bantu and non-Bantu "Niger-
Congo" languages are unrelated, the areal diffusion of Bantu numerals
is easier to imagine than a borrowing from a more exotic source. The
non-Bantu "NC" languages are spoken in _West_ Africa (Senegal, Guinea
Bissau, Nigeria, Cameroon, etc.), very far away from the Indian Ocean.

Distance is a problem for areal diffusion as well as sea-bound
transmission.

>
> As for AN presence in Africa, there is a pervasive Bantu substrate

in Malagasy. The most natural explanation thereof is that proto-
Malagasy speakers (AN traders arriving from southern Borneo) settled
also on the eastern coast of Africa as they colonised the island, and
that there was movement of people and diffusion of linguistic traits
across the Mozambique Channel. The linguistic fingerprints of AN on
the continent were eventually wiped out in the aftermath of the Bantu
migration, but there was very likely some back-migration out of
Africa, bringing Bantu-tinged AN dialects there.

Agree.

>
> The earliest archaeological traces of human settlement in
>Madagascar come from the fifth century. Also the mass extinction of
>the local megafauna began about that time.

Independently dated? And if there were several floods, do we know
what archaeological remains lie on the ocean shelves?

>I find it hard to believe
>that an expert sea-people sailing to and fro between Africa and the
>Malay Archipelago (there is evidence of later contacts) should have
>missed the opportunity of colonising a virgin island, the fourth
>largest on this planet (Borneo being the third), that lay right on
>their course.
>
> To sum up, the linguistic evidence, which suggests the fourth or
>fifth century as the likeliest date of the emergence of proto-
>Malagasy, squares well with the known history of Africa and
>Madagascar. Anyone who'd like to suggest substantial arrivals from
>the east at an earlier date would have problems explaining how on
>earth the AN seafolk managed to miss Madagascar. In other words,
>early Malagasy could be the only potential source of AN numerals
>(and other loans) in equatorial Africa: "isa, roa, telo, efatra,
>dimy, ...?".

Could be? But who would stop early AN seafolk from travelling to the
other side?

>By the way, Proto-Bantu *tato '3' dates back to the >fourth
>millennium BC or so.

Inneresting. I thought the Bantu expansion was around 500 BC, and
since Proto-something usually means the reconstructed language
immediately prior to break-up, caused by physical dispersal, Proto-
Bantu should be around that time too. Where do the the extra millenia
enter into the picture?

>
> Piotr
>

Torsten