distances between Ainu and other languages

[Yuri, Yuliana, Alina< Ludmila Tambovtseva]

Dear Typologists, on the basis of our phonetic corpora we measured the phonological distances between Ainu and the other 158 languages in our corpora. Ainu is an isolated language of Japan. It is not similar to Japanese. The closest distance happens to be 5.451 to an American Indian language Quechua. The next closest language is Inga 7.388 which is also an American Indian language. The mean distance to Finno-Ugric languages -16.95; to Samoyedic - 16.31; to Turkic- 18.08; to Mongolian - 23.66; to Chookchi and other Paleo-Asiatic languages - 15.41, etc. The results are published in: Yuri Tambovtsev. The phono-typological distances between Ainu and the other world languages as a clue for closeness of languages. - In: Asian and African studies, Volume 17, #1, 2008, p.40-62. Our typological distances make us believe that the forefathers of Ainu moved to America in the prehistorical times. Phonological features are the result of the articulation basis which is preserved by the people for a long time if not forever. I have prepared another long article on the distances between the American Indian languages and Siberian languages, but I do not know where to publish it. Can you advise me any journal? Looking forward to hearing from you soon to yutamb at mail.ru Remain yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia. 
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