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From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: Ruhlen's "On the Origin of Languages": a Review (I)
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References: <4vvkje$guk@news.xs4all.nl> <5143ei$ejv@netsrv2.spss.com> <hubey.842560232@pegasus.montclair.edu> <51mme7$5bp@xochi.tezcat.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 12:29:39 GMT
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In article <51mme7$5bp@xochi.tezcat.com>,
Mark Rosenfelder <markrose@tezcat.com> wrote:

>ma 'mother'                  Ma

	This one is a classic baby-talk word.

>ma 'horse'                   mare

	This might be a borrowing from some early speakers of some
Indo-European language, such as the ancestors of the Tocharian speakers;
my AHD lists English "mare" as coming from IE *marko- . 

>yapian 'opium'               opium

	The Chinese word may be a borrowing from some Western language; 
my trusty AHD lists "opium" as going back to Greco-Roman antiquity.
-- 
Loren Petrich				Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com			And a fast train
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