Arabic and IE

[Alexis Manaster-Ramer]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
There may be cases where we would like to say this. Eastern
Armenian Romany is the classic example, although recent
surveys of the topic tend to focus on other examples
(Mitchif, Copper Island Aleut, etc.).  The W. European Jewish
language known as Loshnekoudesh (apparently also once used in
at least one Christian village in Bavaria) and distinct
from Yiddish (it is in fact a mixture of Yiddish and Hebrew
in the way that EAR is a mix of Romany and Armenian,
Mitchif of French and Cree, etc.) is one that I don't
think is EVER cited, but it happens to be the only of these
which I have studied in some detail, so I thought I'd
put in a plug.

But this has nothing whaterv to do with the fact that
within the Nostratic theory, Semitic is not a sister of
IE but rather a daughter of Afro-Asiatic, which in turn
is a sister of IE.  According to Sergei Starostin, who
I disagree with on more things than not but who I nevertheless
think is surely one of the top two or three names in
comparative, and especially classificatory, linguistics
now alive, AA is not a daughter of Nostratic but a
sister.

Of course, as I pointed out earlier, the Nostratic theory
in ANY form is far from universally accepted even among the
small number of linguists who have the qualifications to
judge it.  More broadly, it has been derided or dismissed
(and occasionally even substantively criticized) by many
who do not, but I do not know whether it would be true to
say, that among those who do not have the requisite
background but nevertheless do hold an opinion, most
are for or against.  I think the nays are probably more
numerous, but I am not sure.

A.

On Sat, 30 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

>
> It seems to me that the only thing necesary for this possible paradox
> to go away, would be to change the model of language change. Mammals
> have two parents each. All we have to do is allow the possibility of
> language families to have two parents (or even more) and then create
> a branching graph instead of a simple tree. It would be more accurate
> and we would not have to accept the simple model of reality for reality.
> Instead we would fit the model to the more complex reality.
>
>
> --
> Best Regards,
> Mark
> -==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>