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From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: Cognate words among the Altaic languages
Message-ID: <petrichDyHK27.B5t@netcom.com>
Keywords: Altaic
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <52idh0$jh4@cronkite.ocis.temple.edu>
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 08:39:43 GMT
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	One interesting problem with Altaic cognates is that the 
resemblance is generally too good, X = X. This makes it difficult to do 
the sort of nontrivial comparisons that Indo-Europeanists are familiar with.

	There is an interesting curiosity, however, that of the 
distinction between r-Turkic and z-Turkic. These have the following 
correspondences:

z-Turkic	sh	l	z	r
r-Turkic	l	l	r	r

The inexact matches have been suggested to be palatalized l and r that 
got resolved in different ways.

	The interesting question is how other Altaic (and putative 
Altaic) langs correspond here.
-- 
Loren Petrich				Happiness is a fast Macintosh
petrich@netcom.com			And a fast train
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