----- 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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