Nostratic & Indo-European mailing lists

[Richard M. Alderson III]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
With some trepidation, I wish to announce to the broad historical linguistics
community that I have taken over ownership of the Nostratic and Indo-European
mailing lists previously hosted by Bobby Bryant of the University of Texas.
These two lists serve rather different purposes.
 
The Indo-European list is intended for the discussion of topics centered on
languages of the IE family and the cultures that speak or have spoken them.
This is fairly narrowly construed:  External connections, for example, should
be referred to the Nostratic list.
 
The Nostratic list is intended for the discussion of the ramifications of the
Nostratic hypothesis (whether we mean by this Pedersen, Cuny, Illi^c-Svity^c,
Bomhard, or the "Michigan school", or a variant such as Greenberg's Eurasiatic)
including the discussion of similar hypotheses when they illuminate points of
theory (although we do not in general duplicate discussions on HISTLING).  We
have always been broad-minded as to allowable discussions--Basque historical
linguistics has figured prominently in some discussions, for example.
 
Ground rule #1:  I am not nearly as patient as Bobby Bryant.  Uncollegial
behaviour will not be tolerated, and messages without scholarly content will
not be forwarded to the list.  These lists is not publicly owned or sponsored;
I am providing places for those interested in these topics to discuss them, on
my own time and at my own expense.
 
The mail system from which I will run the new list lacks certain facilities of
the listserver software.  If I were simply to relay all incoming e-mail to the
list, there would be no protection from commercial solicitations unrelated to
the purpose of the list, so there will have to be a human component in mail
delivery.
 
Because of this, mail will not be delivered to subscribers immediately, but
will be sent out in batches after 17:00 Pacific time (= GMT/BST - 08:00).
There is no digest option; each message will be sent separately.  The volume
of the Nostratic list, even at its peak, has never been particularly high; that
on the Indo-European list is generally lower.
 
I have already sent announcements of the re-constitution of these lists to most
of the subscribers; a few have failed to be delivered because of restrictions
on the subscribers' mail systems.  I would like to invite those interested in
these topics (both present subscribers who have not received mail from me, and
those newly interested in subscribing) to send e-mail to the these addresses:
 
    For Indo-European: indoeuropean-request at xkl.com
 
    For Nostratic: nostratic-request at xkl.com
 
Until 31 May 1998, everyone who has not UNSUBSCRIBED will continue to receive
mailings from the list.  After that date, only those who (RE-)SUBSCRIBE will
get the mailings.
 
                                                                Rich Alderson