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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dear lingtyp colleagues,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>on the basis of
our phonetic corpora we measured the<BR>phonological distances between Ainu and
the other 158 languages in our corpora.<BR>Ainu is an isolated language of
Japan. It is not similar to Japanese. The<BR>closest distance happens to be
5.451 to an American Indian language Quechua.<BR>The next closest language is
Inga 7.388 which is also an American Indian<BR>language. The mean distance to
Finno-Ugric languages -16.95; to Samoyedic -<BR>16.31; to Turkic- 18.08; to
Mongolian - 23.66; to Chookchi and other<BR>Paleo-Asiatic languages - 15.41,
etc. The results are published in: Yuri<BR>Tambovtsev. The phono-typological
distances between Ainu and the other world<BR>languages as a clue for closeness
of languages. - In: Asian and African studies,<BR>Volume 17, #1, 2008, p.40-62.
Our typological distances make us believe that<BR>the forefathers of Ainu moved
to America in the prehistorical times.<BR> Phonological features are the
result of the articulation basis which is preserved<BR> by the people for a
long time if not forever. I have prepared another long<BR> article on the
distances between the American Indian languages and<BR> Siberian languages,
but I do not know where to publish it. Can you advise me any<BR> journal?
Looking forward to hearing from you soon to </FONT><A href=""><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>yutamb@mail.ru</FONT></A><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3> Remain<BR>yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev,
Novosibirsk, Russia.
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