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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dear Corpora members, on the basis of our phonetic
corpora we measured the phonological distances between Ainu and the other 158
languages in our corpora. Ainu is an isolated language of Japan. It is not
similar to Japanese. The closest distance happens to be 5.451 to an
American Indian language Quechua. The next closest language is Inga 7.388 which
is also an American Indian language. The mean distance to Finno-Ugric languages
-16.95; to Samoyedic - 16.31; to Turkic- 18.08; to Mongolian - 23.66; to
Chookchi and other Paleo-Asiatic languages - 15.41, etc. The results are
published in: Yuri Tambovtsev. The phono-typological distances between Ainu and
the other world languages as a clue for closeness of languages. - In: Sasian
and African studies, Volume 17, #1, 2008, p.40-62. Our typological
distances make us believe that the forefathers of Ainu moved to America in the
prehistorical times. Phonological features are the result of the articulation
basis which is preserved by the people for a long time if not forever. I have
prepared another long article on the distances between the American Indian
languages and Siberian languages, but I do not know where to publish it. Can you
advise me any journal? Looking forward to hearing from you soon to <A
href="mailto:yutamb@mail.ru">yutamb@mail.ru</A> Remain yours sincerely Yuri
Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia. </FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>