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From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: Chinese Contrary to John Halloran's Thesis?
Message-ID: <petrichDyEJFy.8DA@netcom.com>
Keywords: Sumerian, Language Origin
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <5184eg$p8a@halley.pi.net> <seagoat.581.0086518A@primenet.com> <petrichDyDMCr.87B@netcom.com> <seagoat.582.030468D3@primenet.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 17:33:34 GMT
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Sender: petrich@netcom18.netcom.com

In article <seagoat.582.030468D3@primenet.com>,
John A. Halloran <seagoat@primenet.com> wrote:
>In article <petrichDyDMCr.87B@netcom.com> petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:

>Does Chinese writing represent the language phonetically, or is it purely 
>logographic?  If the writing is not phonetic, it would be easier for the 
>language to undergo truncation.

	Having a nominally phonetic writing system has not stopped 
truncation from happening -- consider all the silent letters in English 
and French.

>>        Furthermore, if some Sumerian ancestor had had severe phonetic 
>>reduction, then a lot of words could well have become indistinguishable 
>>in sound, forcing the coinage of new words in order to preserve phonetic 
>>distinctiveness.

>It is just a coincidence then that all the single-consonant words describe the 
>culture of the early Near Eastern Neolithic.

	Empty sarcasm. Consider what the numerous single-consonant words 
of Mandarin Chinese describe some time.

>>>This tells us that at the time that the Sumerians invented their word for 
>>>sickle, the words zu2 and bu were in the same form in which they have come 
>>>down to us.  These are not truncated versions of longer original forms.

>>        That's a totally empty assertion -- and demonstrably false in the 
>>case of Mandarin Chinese.

>Prove it.  Let's see a list of Mandarin Chinese compounds of culture objects 
>that would have been invented say 6,000 years ago where the compounds have 
>lost intermediate consonants that are still present in the constituent words 
>from related languages.

	Again, you don't get the point. My point is that your claim about 
single-consonant words being the absolute original ones just does not 
hold, and Mandarin Chinese provides a giant counterexample.
-- 
Loren Petrich				Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com			And a fast train
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