Re: Swadesh Lists

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

> Ned,
> Thanks for your time.

Gerry,

You're quite welcome.

>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,

I did not say that. Please re-read my message. I said the list of
examples I sent you was not arranged hierarchically. That is not
claiming there is no hierarchy- of course there is. I didn't arrange
the list alphabetically either; that doesn't mean I'm claiming there
is no alphabet ;-)

>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).

I still don't get the relevance of Nostratic to Homo erectus's
language. Even if it could be shown that H. erectus and H. sapiens co-
existed in a particular geographic area at some point, how could you
know that they shared a language?

Ned