--- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, rmccalli@... wrote:

>
> For those who are interested. This lexicon is based on previous

postings by

> some of our colleagues. No guarantees as to accuracy or re: typos

on my

> part. I'd appreciate any corrections and updates.

It appears that Aikio et al. attribute a lot of Uralic words to IE-
loans. Although by no means am I an expert, I disagree with this.
Rather, I think that the words which they attribute to borrowings
from IE are instead co-inherited with PIE from a parent language
(Nostratic?). Perhaps Aikio et al. are trying to show that Proto-
Uralic is an offshoot of PIE, instead of a separate language? If so,
I think they're wrong. In my opinion, PIE and PU both descend from
an even earlier language, and ultimately from Nostratic.

Another thing that seems problematic with their reconstructions is
their attribution of laryngals to the development of long vowels in
the Balto-Finnic and Saamic languages. For example, Proto-Uralic
*d'ïxmi "bird cherry" > Finnish tuomi "bird cherry", from earlier
toomi. However, I have heard/read that Proto-Uralic /ï/ merged
with /i/ in Proto-Finno-Saamic. Plus, since /ï/ is a high back
unrounded vowel, and [o] is a mid back rounded vowel, this means that
the voiceless velar fricative [x] (assuming it was such) had to both
lower and round the preceding vowel (not to mention lengthen it too).

I don't know much about the other Uralic languages, but if you look
at Finnish, you'll see that there have been two stages of long
vowels. In Finnish, the earlier long vowels became diphthongized:
[e:] > [ie], [o:] > [uo], [ö:] > [yö]. What's interesting is that
[a:] and [ä:] are conspicuously missing, and I'm not sure why. The
later long vowels and diphthongs in Finnish are the results of
consonant gradation.

That's all for right now.

- Rob