Mass Comparison

Looks at words for numbers, body parts, kinship terms, etc.Proto-Afro-Asiatic Afro-Asiatic *mlg 'suck, breast, udder'

Arabic Afro-Asiatic m-l-j 'suck the breast'

Old Egyptian Afro-Asiatic mndy 'woman's breast, udder'

Proto-Indo-European Indo-European *melg- 'to milk'

English Indo-European milk 'to milk, milk'

Latin Indo-European mulg-e:re 'to milk'

Proto-Finno-Ugric Finno-Ugric *määlke 'breast'

Saami Finno-Ugric mielga 'breast'

Hungarian Finno-Ugric mell 'breast'

Tamil Dravidian melku 'to chew'

Malayalam Dravidian melluka 'to chew'

Kurux Dravidian melkha: 'throat'

Central Yupik Eskimo-Aleut melug- 'to suck'

Mixe Penutian amu'ul 'to suck'

Mohave Hokan malyaqe' 'throat'

Guamo Equatorial mirko 'to drink'

Surinam Macro-Carib e'mo:kïï 'to swallow'

Faai Macro-Carib mekeli 'nape of the neck'

From Internet, comments on Ruhlen and Greenberg

Take a closer look at the list; the rules for this game are evidently quite lax. The vowels are completely ignored. The middle consonant varies from l to ly to lh to n to r to zero. The end consonant ranges from g to j to d to k to q to q' to kh to k' to X to zero. Switching around medial consonants seems to be allowed; extra consonants and syllables can appear where needed.

Observe the semantic variation as well: body parts ranging from neck to nape to throat to breast to cheek; actions including swallowing, milking, drinking, chewing, and sucking. Some defenders of Ruhlen & Greenberg make much of the probability of finding such lists among given numbers of families; but notice that one can pretty much pick and choose what languages from a family to include. If Greek doesn't do it for you, try Latin; if Hebrew doesn't work, use Arabic.

Problems with mass comparison

1-It finds cognates, but not systematic sound correspondences or sound changes.2-It is too lenient about how similar the semantics and phonology can be.3-Often, related words are not apparent until you know the sound changes:

Hindi Englishcakka: wheelpa:nch fivesi:~g hornchah sixpissu: flea

4-Although it considers basic vocabulary to be most important and less likely to be borrowed, lots of languages have borrowed core vocabulary.

5-It doesn’t consider coincidence.

Pseudo Cognates between English and Chinese

baba 'daddy' papabao 'luxuriant foliage' boughbeihou 'behind' behindbengdai 'bandage' bandagebi 'pen' bic, birobu 'book' bookdage ren '12 people' dozendan 'dawn' dawner 'ear' earfeishi 'troublesome, fussy' fussygang 'work collectively' gang 'group'guo 'pass through' gohong 'hum of crowd' humhuran 'suddenly' hurryingji 'mock' jeerkusi 'very similar' quasilei 'flower bud' lei 'flower necklace'lian 'connect' linelibie 'leave' leavema 'mother' Mamiao 'mewing' mew, miaowmutong 'shepherd' muttonnaiyou 'cream' mayopan 'plate' panpei 'match, pair' pairpei 'compensate' paypo 'pour' poursha 'shark' sharkshafa 'sofa' sofashi 'Mrs, Madam' sheshi 'see, examine' seeshu 'school' schoolshuo 'say, tell' showti 'tear' teartie 'stick on' tietou 'throw' throw

6-It doesn't look at morphology.

Some languages have different pronouns for I and me others don't.

I je ahám egó egome mois mám emé me

7-Nursery words (mama, dada) and onomatopoeia (animal noises, spit, snore, cough etc.) need to be eliminated.

8-You must consider if word is a cognate within its own family:

French Italian Spanish RumanianRight droit destra diestra dreaptaLeft gauche sinistra izquierda stânga

Gauche and izquierda don't fit in the family. What if they were similar to some distant language? Ketchup is similar to Chinese word it comes from. What does that say?

9-You must consider the history of each language and base comparisons on the older proto form not the modern form.

Koasati Mayan Huastec‘Dance’ bit bis bisom

*kwit

Maybe there is something to mass comparison

When you compare proto words from a super family called NOSTRATIC,me has /m/you has /t/

Proto-Nostratic

Proto-Indo-

European

Proto-Uralic

Proto-Altaic

Proto-Kartvelian

Proto-Dravidian

Proto-Yukaghir

NivkhProto-

Chukotko-Kamchatkan

Proto-Eskimo

Proto-Afro-

Asiatic

'I'(nominative

)/mi/

h₁eǵom/ʔeɡʲom/

[52]/mi/ /bi/ /me/, /mi/ /met/ ни /ni/ [52]

/wi/ 'I',-/mkət/'I [act

on] thee'

/mi/,[53]-/mi/[54]

'me' ~'mine'

(obliquecases)

/minV/ /mene/[55] /minV/- /mine/- /men/- [52]

'thou'(nominative

)

/tti/and/or

/si/

ti ~ tū/ti/ ~ /tuː/

/ti//tʰi/

and/or /si/

[56] /tet/

тъи,чи

/tʰi/,/tt ʃi/

/tu/ /ci/[57] /t(i)/

'thee'(oblique)

/ttinV/and/or/sinV/

te- /te/- tū- /tuː/-/tʰin/-

and/or /sin/-

/si/-, /se/--/mkət/'I [act

on] thee'

'we'(inclusive)

/mæ//we/-,

-/me/- 'we'

mä- ~me-

/mæ/- ~/me/-'we'

/ba/(nom.)/myn/-(oblique) 'we'

/men/-, /m/-ma ~ mā/ma/ ~

/maː/ 'we'

/mit/'we'

мер/mer/[58]'we'

/mur/'we'

/m(n)/[53]

'we'(exclusive)

/na//ne/-

'we'[59]/naj/, /n/-

[60]nām /naːm/

'we'/naħnu/

[6₁]'you'

(plural)/ttæ/ -/te/[62] tä /tæ/ /tʰV/

and/or /tit/ /tur/ ?/t(V)/

/sV/

Greenberg hypothesized that with exception of Na-Dene and Eskimo Aleut, all Native American languages are related.

Genetics shows same thing. Three waves of people from Siberia. The earliest form AMERIND.

In Amerind:

*T'ANA = child, sibling*T'INA = son, brother, boy*T'UNA = daughter, sister girl

Indo-Pacific Languages and Nepal?

Kusunda spoken in Nepal, other languages are Indo-Pacific

Bad historical linguistics

(From LinguistList March 2004)

Menzies, Gavin. 2003. ₁42₁. The Year China Discovered America. New York: Harper & Collins.

Menzies 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.”

During the ₁6th century, in which Spain colonized Peru, it also colonized the Philippines, from which it conducted trade with China. Also, it is known that Chinese sailors served on Spanish ships, even in the early years of trans-Pacific trade. And so on. I would suggest that these data provide room for an alternative hypothesis.

[Palso could have been borrowed from Spanish balsa and sampan/chamban could be borrowing or coincidence.]

From Internet. Evidence that Arabs were Precolombians:

3. During his second voyage, Columbus was told by the Indians of Espanola (Haiti), that Black people had been to the island before his arrival. For proof they presented Columbus with the spears of these African Muslims. These weapons were tipped with a yellow metal that the Indians called Guanine, a word of West African derivation meaning ‘‘gold alloy.’’ Oddly enough, it is related to the Arabic world ‘‘Ghinaa’’ which means ‘‘Wealth.’’ Columbus brought some Guanines back to Spain and had them tested. He learned that the metal was ₁8 parts gold (56.25 percent), six parts silver (₁8.75 percent and eight parts copper (25 percent), the same ratio as the metal produced in African metal shops of Guinea. [metalurgical evidence is better than linguistic]

6. There are 565 names of places (villages, towns, cities, mountains, lakes, rivers, etc.) in USA (484) and Canada (8₁) which are derived from Islamic and Arabic roots. These places were originally named by the natives in pre-Columbian period. Some of these names carried holy meanings such as: Mecca (Indiana) - 720 inhabitants, Makkah Indian tribe (Washington), Medina (Idaho) - 2₁00, Medina (NY) - 8500, Medina and Hazen (North Dakota) - ₁₁00 and 5000, respectively, Medina (Ohio) - ₁2,000, Medina (Tennessee) - ₁₁00, Medina (Texas) - 26,000, Medina (Ontario) -₁200, Mahomet (Illinois) - 3200, Mona (Utah) - ₁₁00, Arva (Ontario) - 700, and many others. A careful study of the names of the

native Indian tribes revealed that many names are derived from Arab and Islamic roots and origins, i.e. Anasazi, Apache, Arawak, Arikana, Chavin Cherokee, Cree, Hohokam, Hupa, Hopi, Makkah, Mahigan, Mohawk, Nazca, Zulu, Zuni, etc.