Loans Back and Forth: 'bow'

[Wallace Chafe]

In Proto-Northern-Iroquoian "bow" can be reconstructed as *a?e:na? (where ? 
is glottal stop and the e is nasalized and accented). The time depth is 
uncertain. Glottochronology led Lounsbury to a time depth on the order of 
1,900 to 2,400 years, which seems to me greatly exaggerated. These 
languages are not all that different. I would suggest something under 1,000 
years. Lounsbury's calculation for Proto-Iroquoian yielded 3,500 to 3,800 
years, but that's probably also exaggerated. The fault is with 
glottochronology, not Lounsbury.

Wally

--On Friday, November 11, 2005 8:59 AM -0500 mmccaffe at indiana.edu wrote:

> I may have missed something here. Is "bow" reconstructible for
> Proto-Siouan?  Proto-Northern-Iroquoian? (I doubt that it's
> reconstructible for Proto- Iroquoian, which has a time depth of, what?,
> 5000 years? What is the time  depth hypothesized for Proto-Siouan?
> Proto-Northern-Iroquoian?
>
> Michael