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From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: Hebrew words in Mayan language
Message-ID: <petrichE5zFr3.3qC@netcom.com>
Organization: Netcom
References: <33025666.4F5@vii.com> <330ce859.100128320@news.demon.co.uk> <petrichE5xKt3.8CA@netcom.com> <330E2AC3.7596@trl.telstra.com.au>
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 02:18:39 GMT
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Sender: petrich@netcom22.netcom.com

In article <330E2AC3.7596@trl.telstra.com.au>,
Jacques Guy  <j.guy@trl.telstra.com.au> wrote:
>Loren Petrich wrote:
 
>>         While one compares words, why not confine oneself to some
>> standard set, such as numerals or the Swadesh List?

>Because if you keep your set open-ended, and allow for semantic shifts,
>you are sure to find words that look related. ...

	Certainly true. One good example of restricting the semantic 
field is to use numerals, which have very precise semantics. An example 
of doing that is in:

	http://www.tezcat.com/~markrose/numbers.html

	I compared the Hebrew numerals from 1 to 10 with all the 
New-World examples he had listed, and the resemblance was just about zero.
 
>>         And why not compare grammar? Morphology tends not to get
>> borrowed, despite an abundance of opportunities.

>Because you have to learn some grammar, and that requires a lot
>more work than grabbing any old dictionary from any old dusty
>bookshelf.

	I'm sure that looking for coincidences can be very time-consuming :-)

	However, understanding grammatical features requires some higher
level of knowledge than looking for words with vaguely similar phonetics
and semantics. 

-- 
Loren Petrich				Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com			And a fast train
My home page: http://www.webcom.com/petrich/home.html
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