LINGUIST List 5.916

Tue 23 Aug 1994

Disc: Altaic

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1. Ecological Linguistics,Anderson,PRT, Re: 5.911 Altaic
2. , Altaic (References)

Message 1: Re: 5.911 Altaic

A question on Ainu (I have not read the article referred to here:)

>The latest work on Ainu (Alexander Vovin, "The origins of the
>Ainu language", Panasiatic Linguistics, II: 672-685, Bangkok,
>and his just published book "A Reconstruction of Proto-Ainu")
>conclusively, to my mind, refute the idea that AInu might be
>Altaic and suggest a relationship with Austroasiatic that is
>at least suggestive.

I recently became aware that some people regard the Ainu as the southernmost
representatives of the North-Pacific culture area. Culture is not the same as
language, but I wonder whether Vovin or others have considered Luorawetlan or
Na-Dene or Haida or other possible northern connections for Ainu?

Does it look less likely?

Thanks for any hints, Lloyd Anderson

I was asked to supply some of the references to my discussion.

Krueger, John R. "Altaic linguistic reconstruction and culture"
Current Trends in Ling. 11, 569-581 (1973).

Miller, Roy Andrew. "Genetic connections among the Altaic
languages". In: Sprung from Some Common Source (ed. S. Lamb
& E. D. Mitchell), 293-327. Stanford (1991)

Vovin, Alexander. 1994. "Long-distance relationships,
reconstruction methodology, and the origins of Japanese".
Diachronica 11:95-114.

------. 1993. A Reconstruction of Proto-Ainu. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

There also some brief discussion of the frivolous opposition to
Altaic in my

"On Illich-Svitych's Nostratic theory", Studies in Lang 17:205-250 (1993)

and there should be more in my

"Nostratic, An outsider's view", to appear in Nostratic: Evidence
and Status (ed. B. Joseph and J. Salmons), Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
John Benjamins.

---------
I can provide additional refs if anybody needs them. For thise
who just one or two things to read, I would recommend either
Krueger or Miller on the general Altaic question, and Vovin 1994
on Japanese.