THE MACRO-COMPARATIVE JOURNAL
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Volume
3 No. 1
June
2012
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CONTENTS
EDITORIAL NEWS
ARTICLES
Comparing Basque and
Proto-Indo-European: a preliminary phonetic survey
Arnaud Fournet
Abstract: The paper describes the phonetic
correspondences that can be found between Basque and Proto-Indo-European (PIE).
More than 30 items of the basic vocabulary are presented together with a table
of sound correspondences. Basque is usually considered to be an isolate but it
would appear that it actually contains words that have clear PIE
affinities.
Arnaud Fournet
Abstract: According to one of the current
syntheses about linguistic, archeological and genetic data, homelands of
linguistic macro-families coincide with epicenters of Neolithic expansion.
Among other persons, who are archeologists for the most part, this scenario has
been developed and advocated by the Australian archeologist, Peter S. Bellwood.
The paper investigates the case of Berber, a branch of the Afrasian phylum. It
appears that Berber lexical data very seriously conflicts with this line of
reasoning. There are clear signs that the vocabulary of Neolithic realia and
activities is not inherited in that
branch of Afrasian but was borrowed from several sources, which include Latin
and Italic languages. There is at least one group, based on primarily
linguistic considerations, that does not fit in the equation ‘linguistic
macro-family = neolithic expansion’: Afrasian.
Are the oldest Hydronyms of the Ob
and Yenisei Riverbasins of Yeniseian or Uralic Origin ?
Arnaud Fournet
Abstract: The hydrographic basins of the Ob
and Yenisei rivers in western Siberia reveal a vast complex of hydronyms older
than the Russian presence. Several authors, among whom the geographers Duljzon
and Maloletko, have ascribed it to the Yeniseian family, whose sole living
language is now Ket. According to this hypothesis specialists of Yeniseian like
Vajda or Werner infer an autochthonous origin for the Yeniseian family in this
area. I propose an alternative which ascribes to Uralic and especially to Ugric
and Samoyedic a significant share of this corpus of hydronyms and the origin of
the hydronymic formatives.
COMMENTS
REVIEWS
Samuel E. Martin, 1987, The Japanese Language through Time
Yale University Press.
Arnaud Fournet
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