----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2001 10:30
PM
Subject: Re: [nostratic] Proposal of a
name for a possible family
Gerry:
>Arutiunov claims the Ainu have recently
been
>connected to Altaic.
Only in a human genome sense. Ainu is
definitely not Altaic. The
Ainu people however appear to derive genetically
from the peoples
of the mainland to the west.
My personal view is
that a large group of languages resided on
the mainland west of Japan and
east of the SinoDene homeland,
during the big glacial melt c.9000 BCE. Ainu
and Austronesian both
would derive from this group, with Ainu ending up in
Japan and the
rest of the group being pushed south and eventually onto the
other
islands. Just a tantalizing thought,
anyways.