Review Apua5

[De Reuse, Willem]

Dear Mr. Fournet:

Thank you for your letter.  I was just expressing my opinion as one of the members of this list.

I do not know whether the moderator of this list feels the same about discussing long distance proposals.  It is best to wait what others say about this.

I also speak from personal experience when I say that if one tells someone about a "general and colossal flaw" in their work they are not likely to want to talk with you anymore.

Please do not take this personally, but I do admit I am more suspicious about a ND-Uralic connection than about a ND-Yeniseian connection.  The history of Uralic is very well known, and there are several Athabascanists who know quite a bit about Uralic, and they would have noticed a striking Uralic-ND connection a long time ago.

But if you want to discuss things, I would be interested in seeing some of your papers on the topic of a Uralic-ND connection, published or unpublished, but maybe you shoudl do that by personal e-mail first.  I speak French so we can go at it in French!

Best,

Willem de Reuse


________________________________________

----- Original Message -----
From: "De Reuse, Willem" <WillemDeReuse at my.unt.edu>
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

(...)

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 made public.

(...)

A.
***