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From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: Language hard-wired in the brain?
Message-ID: <petrichDy0F25.GrB@netcom.com>
Keywords: Sumerian, Nostratic
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References: <51ik58$lvc@scream.auckland.ac.nz> <seagoat.561.00235711@primenet.com> <51sc8u$j18@dove.nist.gov> <seagoat.566.00CD2F43@primenet.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 02:32:28 GMT
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In article <seagoat.566.00CD2F43@primenet.com>,
John A. Halloran <seagoat@primenet.com> wrote:

... However, Nostratic would have been a parallel language to 
>other language families such as Sumerian, to which Nostratic does not appear 
>to be genetically related.

	I've seen Sumerian related to Sino-Caucasian, and I've seen 
attempts to relate Sino-Caucasian, Nostratic, and Amerind (Joseph 
Greenberg's controversial family). However, I doubt that mainstream 
linguists would take this proposed Eurasiatic-New-World megafamily 
seriously before they take Nostratic, Sino-Caucasian, and Amerind 
seriously, and the latter circumstance is not likely to happen anytime 
soon (Nostratic, maybe; Sino-Caucasian, just possibly; and Amerind, that 
may have to wait until a LOT of lower-level comparative work is done).
-- 
Loren Petrich				Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com			And a fast train
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