LINGUIST List 15.986

Wed Mar 24 2004

Disc: How China discovered America...?

Editor for this issue: Sarah Murray <sarahlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. colkitto, How China discovered America...?

The recent work 
	Menzies, Gavin. 2003. 1421. The Year China Discovered
	America. New York: Harper & Collins.
makes some very interesting, albeit vague, suggestions about possible
Chinese linguistic influence on the languages of the Andes (p. 226).

"A sailing ship is chamban in Colombia, sampan in China, a raft is
balsa in South America, palso in China, etc."

He also makes the startling statement that until the late 19th century
villagers in a mountain village in Peru spoke Chinese, citing an the
Peruvian historian Padron.

It looks a little bit suspicious, but Menzies ' does seem to have done
his homework in the book as a whole.

Any comments?

Thanks, Robert Orr