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From: at903@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Ardeshir D. Mehta)
Subject: Re: Proto-World Anyone?
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Reply-To: at903@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Ardeshir D. Mehta)
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References: <petrichCwF4En.1w1@netcom.com> <34p120$43o@labs2.etf.hr> <34r3am$p7u@tardis.trl.OZ.AU> <779590806snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 1994 18:21:32 GMT
Lines: 30


In a previous article, petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) says:

>In article <779590806snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk> philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk writes:
>
>>I've just uncovered the Proto-World word *ka. This marks a sentence as
>>a question.
>
>>Evidence:
>
>>Japanese    ka    goes at the end of a sentence to make the sentence a
>>                  question.
>>French      qui   pron. /ki/ "who"
>>Finnish     -ko   suffix which makes a word the focus of a question.


There is also the Marathi "ka" which works in a fashion almost exactly
similar to the Japanese "ka".  The Gujarati "ke" is the equivalent of the
Marathi "ka", and in Hindi, of course, it's "kya". 

What is most puzzling to me is the EXACTNESS of the similarity between the
Marathi and the Japanese.  There is another almost exact similarlty
between the Gujarati "no" and the Japanese "no" (signifying the equivalent
of the 's (apostrophe s) in English.  Does anyone have an explnation for
the very close similarity?

Ardeshir Mehta.

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