--- In nostratic@yahoogroups.com, "Geraldine Reinhardt" <waluk@...>
wrote:

> In an unpublished manuscript of yet another forthcoming book, "Indo-
> European and the Nostratic Hypothesis," Mr. Bomhard concludes that
> the evidence for the common ancestral language is "massive and
> persuasive."

I've got his "Toward Proto-Nostratic" and I'm not too impressed with
it. His reconstruction of PAA is based almost entirely on the Semitic
branch. He makes a vague assertion that all the vowels of the
Afroasiatic languages can be derived from an original two vowel
system. He likewise makes a vague assertion that the vowel systems of
the IE languages can all be described by a two vowel system. He's a
bit inconsistent about how many laryngeals there are. At first he
claims 4 but in reconstructions uses 6. He says that this is the
result of some allophony but the conditioning envirnoments aren't too
clear. Worst of all, though, is his reconstructions. There are many
examples where the reconstructed meanings don't follow from the
daughter languages. Instead they're chosen to agree with similar
roots from the other language family (he deals only with PIE and
PAA). He also makes no attempt at reconstructing a Nostratic
morphology. The only redeeming aspect of the book is that he produces
a large number of potential cognates. I just think they need to be
reanalyzed with more realistic reconstructions of PAA and PIE in
mind. I also think at least one more language family should be
included (though I think he and others do this in other works).