----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, December 27, 2002 10:36
AM
Subject: RE: [Nostratica] Fw: Christmas
things
Hello, all:
This
is just my uninformed guess, but I would think that "Christmas" and "Santa
Claus", being basically Christian concepts that developed several thousand
years after Nostratic ceased to exist as a distinct language or dialect group,
wouldn't exist per se in Nostratic. They may, as modern "heathens" still
do, have observed the Summer and Winter Solstices and the Vernal and Autumnal
Equinoxes, but that is is just a WAG on my part. Depending on where the
speakers of Nostratic lived, they may or may not have known about reindeer,
which live in the far northern tundras of Eurasia and North America
(caribou). The current-day Sami (Lapps) of northern Scandinavia and
Russia, being part of the Finno-Ugric or Uralic language family and thus a
"daughter" of Nostratic, herd them, but I don't know if that can be considered
an indication that any ancestral speakers of Nostratic would have lived in
that region or otherwise had knowledge of reindeer.
Just
my $.02 worth:
Andy
Howey
Hi Jean,
I'll post your question to the group and maybe
someone knows the answer.
To all Nostratica folks,
Can anyone help out? The question is:
What, I wonder, would "Happy Christmas", "Santa Claus" and
"reindeer" be in Nostratic?
Thanks,
Gerry
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, December 27, 2002 7:59
AM
Subject: Re: [Nostratica] Fw:
Christmas things
Hi Gerry -
Thanks for the card - which, for some
inexplicable reason, I found absolutely mesmerising!
(What, I wonder, would "Happy Christmas",
"Santa Claus" and "reindeer" be in Nostratic?)
Hope you enjoy the holiday too,
Best regards,
Jean Kelly
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