Alexander:

>I think I should give here the rest of the Illich-Svitych's article >for
>#173.

There is too much of a linguistic hurdle between Dravidian, Altaic
and AfroAsiatic to be sure of this item. I estimate that Dravidian
is seperated from Altaic and IndoEuropean by about 7000 years.
Dravidian and AfroAsiatic are seperated by 10,000 years. The least
amount of pleading would involve a comparison between IndoEuropean
and Altaic, a seperation of only 5000 years.

Of course, IE *ker- can't possibly be related to something like
Altaic *kur'i. Relying on the Altaic form, one should expect
IndoEuropean **kWor-. The actual IE form would suggest an earlier
Steppe form **kir- which conflicts with Altaic. However, as I've
said earlier, I think *ker- is one of many Semitish
agriculture-related loanwords that were adopted by the Mid IE
period (6000-5000 BCE).

So, looking at Altaic then, it probably seems to many to compare
neatly with Dravidian phonetically, as long as we ignore the
7000-year gap between them. However, I have two objections above
and beyond this latter remark.

First, I worry that, with only Mongolian and Turkic to rely on,
there is too much opportunity for one branch to have adopted this
word from another, especially given the nomadic nature of these
peoples and their late adoption of agriculture (or are we pushing
the dates back for this as well??). So what about Korean,
ManchuTungusic or Japanese? No cognates there? Not much to go on.
In fact, afaik, I don't recall Proto-Altaic nomads doing any
farming. Where did they get the lambs?

Second, as far as I'm concerned, the phonetics do NOT match
properly. Assuming original Nostratic *k-, a form like Dravidian
*kuri should have an identical counterpart in Steppe. That much
seems good so far. However, I would expect Altaic **k�r� after the
two waves of changes caused by vowel harmony had worked on the word
in this branch. (First, a "progressive front-back agreement",
then later a "regressive rounded-unrounded agreement".)

Even if I put aside common sense concerning the fact that this
word is quite obviously a post-Nostratic wanderword due to its
Neolithic nature, there are still linguistic issues that I find
hard to overcome that would allow me to accept that this word is
a true Nostratic etymon.

Thoughts?


- love gLeN


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