Etherman's Indo-Uralic Thread

[Legion]

[WeepingElf]

Octaviano should try being more like Basilius.

Please explain.

Look at Basilius's post.

[Etherman]

My primary purpose in this thread is to discuss my ideas about Indo-Uralic and get some useful feedback, but I'm also very interested other people's ideas.

Ha, ha, ha. You seem more interested in my own theories (to criticise them) than yours.

I kind of got myself off the Indo-Uralic track when I started noticing some interesting correspondences between Indo-Uralic, Kartvelian, Altaic, and Eskimo-Aleut.They have helped shed some light on certain problems I'd been running into with the Indo-Uralic phonology. For example, in my Indo-Uralic theory PIE *dh should arise from PIU *t near labial sounds and other aspirates. This works for most of the correspondences, but there were some nagging examples where PIE has *dh without the conditioning environment. It just so happens that Altaic and Kartvelian also have *d instead of expected *t in those words.

So while I still think that Indo-Uralic is a valid node, it's probably more useful for me to work on what I'm calling "Proto-Siberian" which includes IE, Uralic, Kartvelian, Eskimo-Aleut, and Chukchi-Kamchatkal.

[WeepingElf]

So while I still think that Indo-Uralic is a valid node, it's probably more useful for me to work on what I'm calling "Proto-Siberian" which includes IE, Uralic, Kartvelian, Eskimo-Aleut, and Chukchi-Kamchatkal.

Michael Fortescue has written a book titledLanguage Relations across Bering Strait, in which he posits a family he names "Uralo-Siberian", consisting of Uralic, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut. That book is of better quality than most of the other stuff I have read on long-range language comparison, and I consider the Uralo-Siberian stock valid. The next closest to Uralo-Siberian is Indo-European (and whichever extinct languages belong to the Europic stock), I think. I consider it likely that Altaic (Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic) is related to Europic-Uralo-Siberian as well, and perhaps also Kartvelian.

[Etherman]

Michael Fortescue has written a book titledLanguage Relations across Bering Strait, in which he posits a family he names "Uralo-Siberian", consisting of Uralic, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut. That book is of better quality than most of the other stuff I have read on long-range language comparison, and I consider the Uralo-Siberian stock valid. The next closest to Uralo-Siberian is Indo-European (and whichever extinct languages belong to the Europic stock), I think. I consider it likely that Altaic (Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic) is related to Europic-Uralo-Siberian as well, and perhaps also Kartvelian.

Unfortunately his book is ridiculously expensive. Amazon.com has an online preview which is frustratingly incomplete. From what I've been able to see his arguments about Yukaghir grammatical morphemes relating to grammatical morphemes elsewhere require a lot of semantic leeway. Still, I'm a bit on the fence about Yukaghir. I have a number of documents on the language, I just haven't have the time to go through them.

[Octaviano]

From Amazon's synopsis:

In building up a scenario for the arrival on the shores of Alaska of speakers of languages related to Eskimo-Aleut with genetic roots deep within Sineria, this book touches upon a number of issues in contemporary historical linguistics and archaeology. The Arctic "gateway" to the New World, by acting as a bottleneck, has allowed only small groups of mobile hunter-gatherers through during specific propitious periods, and thus provides a unique testing ground for theories about population and language movements in pre-agricultural times. Owing to the historically attested prevalence of language shifts and other contact phenomena in the region, it is arguable that the spread of genes and the spread of language have been out of step since the earliest reconstructable times, contrary to certain views of their linkage. Proposals that have been put forward in the past concerning the affiliations of Eskimo-Aleut languages are followed up in the light of recent progress in reconstructing the proto-languages concerned. Those linking Eskimo-Aleut with the Uralic languages and Yukagir are particularly promising, and reconstructions for many common elements are presented. The entire region "Great Beringia" is scoured for typological evidence in the form of anomalies and constellations of uncommon traits diagnostic of affiliation or contact. The various threads lead back to mesolithic times in south central Siberia, when speakers of a "Uralo-Siberian" mesh of related languages appears to have moved along the major waterways of Siberia. Such a scenario would acount for the present distribution of these languages and the results of their meeting with remnants of earlier linguistic waves from the Old World to the New.

[Legion]