16 May
2011
16 May
'11
12:26 p.m.
From: Rich Alderson
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2011 12:15 PM
20 years ago I was willing to entertain the Nostratic
hypothesis, which
posits a familial relationship among Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic[1],
Kartvelian[2], Dravidian[3], and possibly Etruscan, but the efforts of three
very talented linguists to demonstrate such a relationship give rise to
three massively conflicting reconstructions, so that the only conclusion to
be reached is "not provable." I no longer consider it a viable area in which
to work.
Oops, forgot the footnotes:
[1] Turkish, Mongolian, and Manchu, possibly Japanese and Korean as well.
[2] Georgian, Mingrelian, Laz and Svan, spoken in the south Caucasus.
[3] Largely located in southern India. Major members are Tamil, Telugu,
Kannada, and Malayalam.