Greek question & the pre-history of *nekwt

[manaster at umich.edu]

On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, Glen Gordon wrote:

[snip]

> Without getting too entangled in a flimsy Nostratic explanation that
> ignores all IE laws as Patrick has done, *nekwt is similar to words in
> Uralic (Finnish nukkua) that mean "to sleep". Hence, "sleep time" ->
> "night". I recall there might be similar words in Altaic? However, no
> proposals of *gh need apply in its etymology nor imaginative comparisons
> to Egyptian of all things. This still begs the question of why there is
> -kh- in Greek and, that part, I dunno.

But Nostratic evidence could resolve the question of which
velar to posit in IE.  It isnot just IE laws that need to be
followed but also the Nostratic ones.