Review Apua5

[Arnaud Fournet]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "De Reuse, Willem" <WillemDeReuse at my.unt.edu>
To: "List for the discussion of the Athabaskan language family and related 
languages" <ATHAPBASCKAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>; "Arnaud Fournet" 
<fournet.arnaud at WANADOO.FR>
Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2011 6:21 PM
Subject: RE: Review Apua5


Hi Mr. Fournet:

Thanks for your review of Apua5 and observations.  It might be a good idea 
to restrict discussion on this list to the DY proposal.  I think discussing 
Uralic-NaDene similarities or Nostratic-NaDene similarities will take us too 
far into speculation, as there is no way to present the necessary evidence 
on a list like this.

***
Dear Mr. de Reuse

Sorry for answering only now, but I was not home this weekend.

As regards ND-Y or ND-Uralic, I think it's already a value assessment to 
characterize the former as a proposal and the latter as speculation.

In addition I think this forum is adequate for discussing these issues, 
either directly or by providing links to external files.
If this list is not adequate, where do you think there is a better place to 
do that?

It must also be emphasized that one cannot discuss the ND-Y relationship 
without discussing Uralic at the same time, because:
1. many of the "cognates" proposed are loanwords into Y
2. the supposedly "Yeniseian" hydronymic substrate is of Uralic origin for 
the most part
3. Uralic looks like a better match for ND than Y.

The ND-Y cannot be dealt with in isolation from Uralic.
That's the core of my objections to the ND-Y theory.
There's a general and colossal flaw in Vajda's approach, which I have 
repeatedly warned him against in private mails but he won't listen to these 
problems.
So these problems have to be make public.

A.
***






One observation on the below:
________________________________________
In all cases it would appear that Na-Dene is only present in the upper 
North-Western corner
of the Americas because it came from much farther west in Siberia than other
Amerindian groups, which seem to be from Eastern and Coastal Siberia (kind
of macro-Tungusic / macro-Altaic).
___________________________________________
Actually, geographical distance does not tell us much about historical 
relationships.  Remember Algic: Wiyot and Yurok are very far
***
Very far ??
Just about two thousand km away.
Which is nothing.
A.
***


 from the Proto-Algonquian homeland, and against all expectations 
Algonquian, Wiyot, and Yurok are related.  Also, Na-Dene is not only present 
in the NW corner of the Americas, but also in the American southwest.
***
The USA Southwest is included in what I called the NW corner of the Americas 
(north, central and south all included).
A.
***


Chukotan and Eskimo-Aleut have probably been geographically contiguous for 
some time, but I am far from convinced that there is a genetic relationship 
between those two families. The interesting thing about the DY genetic 
hypothesis is that it looks more promising than the Chukotan-Eskimo-Aleut 
hypothesis, notwithstanding the enormous geographical distance.
***
Uralic and ND is even more promising and even more distant !

Best

Arnaud Fournet