--- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard@...>
wrote:

>

Okay, rather than trying to debate that *h2 couldn't be /x/ (indeed,
in my first post I admitted the possibility), would you know of any
evidence that *h1 couldn't be /S/?

Incidentally, I earlier posted a couple possible PIE~Etruscan
parallels that would support *h1 being /S/. Two examples is pretty
weak, I must admit. Those Etruscan words I found in Larissa
Bonefante's book. I have a much larger list of Etruscan words but I
haven't been able to verify the accuracy of the list (though the forms
in this list that overlap my other information agree). I haven't been
able to look through it for possible PIE cognates yet, but it's
possible that many more words could be added to my list.

> --- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, "etherman23" <etherman23@> wrote:
> > It also
> > seems that very few languages have both x and h.
>
> Welsh, Gaelic, Arabic, Ivrit (probably most Semitic - and you can add
> Ancient Egyptian), Farsi and Northern Thai all have the contrast in
> native words. Admittedly there is barely a lexeme-initial contrast in
> Welsh or Gaelic. This seems to be a fair proportion of the languages
> I have made some study of.
>
> You may be able to argue that German and Czech are not valid examples,
> and there does seem to be rather a dearth of examples in India and
> Burma (until you reach the Tai languages).
>
> After a little research on the web, it seems one may be able to add
> Georgian and Uighur to the examples, but I don't know how much load
> the contrast bears in these languages. For example, I think the
> contrast has little or no load in Scots, and it may be possible to
> treat them as allophones.
>
> > According to Bomhard (Towards
> > Proto-Nostratic) who uses Calarusso as a source, x, at least in the
> > Caucasian languages, have no coloring effects whereas h does.
>
> I would not be adverse to assuming uvularisation or similar of *h2,
> parallel to that of PIE *k (standard orthography). Classical Hebrew
> heth (usually described as pharyngeal) certainly coloured vowels.
>
> Richard.
>