Larry on Altaic

[Alexander Vovin]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Thu, 26 Feb 1998, Larry Trask wrote:
 
> Sasha Vovin writes:
>
> > Larry, may we have the names of mysterious Altaicists whom you
> > consulted and who all unanimously reject Altaic? I am getting
> > curious, may be you conferred with the wrong guys? (:-)
>
> Yes, I thought somebody would ask this.  If you don't mind, I'll
> decline, since the people I've talked to gave me the clear impression
> that they were expressing a purely private opinion which they
> preferred not to make public, and one of them said so explicitly.
>
> This is reasonable.  I know of other cases of linguists who hold
> private views about proposed genetic groupings which they prefer not
> to go public with, merely because they want to maintain good relations
> with colleagues whose public views are very different.
 
 
      Well, Larry, this is not reasonable since you actually disseminate
gossip without any reference to the source of this gossip. And what is
more, you speak with a voice of authority, relying on anonimous authority.
Just for example, person X on this list sends a message saying that Basque
is related to North Caucasian, and that his source of information is
anominous. What would be your reaction?
 
      Besides, working in this field for more than 10 years, I possibly
can imagine obnly three people who have a competence in more than two
branches of Altaic and who have negative attitude towards the genetic
unity. Remember that being a specialist in just one branch of Altaic does
not make this or that scholar a competent judge of Altaic as a whole, by
the same token that every Slavicist or a Germanist is not by default an
IEpeanist. Therefore, I can only conclude that you either consulted these
pseudo-Altaicists, or you made a deliberate choice, asking these three
people. If you asked Miller, Starostin, Menges, Dybo, Street, or yours
truly, for the starters, the results will be different.
 
 
Alexander Vovin
Associate Professor of Japanese
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
382 Moore Hall
1890 East-West Road
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu, HI 96822
vovin at hawaii.edu
fax (808)956-9515 (o.)
t.(808)956-6881 (o.)