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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: 2 and 1 and new and 9 and old [was Re: proto-nostratic and 6 & 7
Message-ID: <1995Jan26.072114.10732@midway.uchicago.edu>
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References: <3g1q7v$84e@news.CCIT.Arizona.EDU> <3g3ghg$ij@pheidippides.axion.bt.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 07:21:14 GMT
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In article <3g3ghg$ij@pheidippides.axion.bt.co.uk> donald@srd.bt.co.uk (Donald Fisk) writes:

>They could be loan words, or coincidences.   The Malay word for
>2 is "dua", which is close enough to the Latin to set you thinking.
>Unfortunately for this, it's also similar and cognate with the Tagalog
>word for 2 (which I forget) which is not very close to the Latin.

And Korean has 'tu(l)' (Yale: twu(l)).  I think we've found another
Proto-World cognate set!  And compare Korean 'hana' to English 'one',
which we know comes from earlier 'an' (long vowel).  This is yet
another reflex of the proto-World root *ana discussed earlier.

>Has anyone else noticed that the Latin word for 9 is similar to the
>word for new, whereas the Cantonese word for 9 is similar to the word
>for old?

I noticed the first case thanks to Catalan, where "new" and "nine"
are homonymns ('nou').  I believe they are distinguished by vowel
quality, though (i.e. [nOu] vs. [nou]).  Can't say as Cantonese 'gau'
and 'gu' ever struck me as that similar, though the Korean reflexes are
homophonous (Yale kwu), unless they differ in vowel length (something
i find hard to distinguish in Korean because it isn't tied to a 
variation in quality).
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
