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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dear colleagues in the field of typology, I wonder
if it is possible to verify the genetic taxa of world languages by typological
methods? For instance, let us take Finno-Ugric language family and analyse it
with the help of the total of the distances between its members and then
compare this total to the total distance between the Turkic language family. If
Finno-Ugric distance total is greater then that of the Turkic one, it means that
Finno-Ugric languages are less similar to each other than the Turkic
languages. We took nine phonetic features and found out that Turkic language
family has a smaller distance total. Thus, we can say that it is more compact on
the phonetic level. It means that Turkic languages are more similar
phonetically. So, we can say that the genetic taxon of the Turkic languages has
been verified by the typological methods. What do you think about that? Looking
forward to hearing from you to <A href="">yutamb@mail.ru</A> Yours
sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev </FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>