Larry on Altaic

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Sasha Vovin writes:
 
> 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.
 
That these people endorse Altaic is well known, Sasha. The quality of
*some* of there work, also, though probably not to everyone on this list.
No, Sasha, I cannot subscribe fully to what you say.
It takes a specialist in all five branches to set the relationship up and
work it out, this is true.
 
It takes a specialist in only one of these languages to remove a pillar (if
the data from that language is used in an improper way).
 
Larry Trask is a specialist in Basque, so he may not be able to demolish,
say, the whole of Dene-Caucasian.
But he can remove Basque out of it single-handedly.
 
Life ain't easy and complx. doubly so ...
 
Stefan Georg
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