----- 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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