Re: Swadesh Lists

Ned,

Thanks for your time. If there doesn't appear to be a hierarchy for language families, and if there is a huge range of languages expressed under the term Proto-Nostratic, then there is no way whatsoever to determine which language Homo erectus spoke. That would definitely be dependent on which geographic sector of the world he lived (if indeed Homo erectus was capable of speech).

Gerry

----- Original Message -----

From: ehlsmith <ehlsmith@...>

To: Nostratica@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Friday, February 28, 2003 12:27 PM

Subject: [Nostratica] Re: Swadesh Lists

> Plus, your listing below: > "Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Afro-Asiatic, Proto-Uralic, Latin, English, > Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, Tamil, Turkish, Korean...and on and on" is > haphazard and includes languages and proto languages that show no > subordination one to another. For example: Latin and English and Spanish > are all members of Indo-European. Perhaps you need to research the > hierarchy of language families on the web (if indeed there is any > pre-ordained hierarchy). Well the list was only intended to be a small number of examples of the huge range of languages included under the term Nostratic Languages. It was not intended to be arranged hierarchically. Ned