Re: Polynesian and South American place names

From: benlizross (benlizro_at_ihug.co.nz)
Date: 08/29/04 

Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 21:25:20 +1200

Philip Deitiker wrote:
>
> benlizross <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> says in
> news:41313AFE.767A@ihug.co.nz:
>
> > benlizross wrote:
> >>
> >> Philip Deitiker wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au> says in
> >> > news:412EF30E.4D16@alphalink.com.au:
> >> >
> >> > > "mama-san"? So there you are. Rant positive.
> >> >
> >> > I would urge some caution careful in rushing to
> >> > judgement in this specific regard.
> >>
> >> I would agree with that general principle. In fact I would
> >> hope that whoever is making up this story might have
> >> looked to see whether local languages had any light to
> >> shed on these place names before rushing off to judge them
> >> half-Japanese.
> >>
> >> > Taseko means fast-flowing-lake in Japanese,
> >>
> >> "fast flowing" is an odd thing to call a lake in any
> >> language and as Jacques has been pointing out, ko isn't
> >> even a native Japanese word
> >>
> >> it runs into the
> >> > river that comes from Chil-ko which in Japanese would be
> >> > something like blood lake
> >>
> >> provided you ignore the -l-
> >>
> >> >or lake of death.
> >>
> >> (that would be shi, I think)
> >> ...or "lake of a thousand"or "earth lake" or ....why not?
> >
> > But in fact it's part of the name of the local people:
> > Chilcotin, or nowadays Tsilhqot'in, official translation
> > "people of the blue water". Unless you look at the other
> > web site, where it means "ochre river people".
>
> Haven't seen it.
>
> > According to
> > the Akriggs, the -tin is the "people" suffix,
>
> gen in Japanese, whereas in Korean its han, same as chinese.

And on all these ending in -n you plan to base what claim?

>
> > -ko- means water or stream,
>
> In japan it can mean lake or occasionally river

Like to see the examples of "river". As "lake", as explained twice now,
it's a loanword from Chinese.
 
> > and Chilco has been variously translated
> > as "warm water" or "young man's river". Any of those
> > etymologies would be just as good as the imported Japanese
> > kind, if you ask me.
>
> Who says either has to be perfect,

You were trying to make some kind of case based on agreement with
Japanese, without even looking at local origins.

 why do the words need to have
> evolved from modern japanese,

I assumed that even you wouldn't be suggesting that. That's why I have
pointed out that several of the words you were working with were not in
Japanese 2-3 ky ago.

 why could they have not evolved
> from a language 2-3 ky old that diverged in 2 directions.

> This is concretized thinking, back up a little bit and
> understand that after the chinese came and left Japan Japanese
> suffered trying to put the street language into chinese form.
> They finally broke down and created specifically for their words
> a phonetic language, and what the hell it works very well for
> speaking some NA words, better than english.

I have no idea what you might mean by "concretized". I'm quite aware of
what I think you are trying to express here about Chinese-Japanese
linguistic relations. However, it has no relevance to the present
discussion. Whatever "works very well" means, it is not evidence for any
actual linguistic relationship.

>
> Japanese have the following
> Tsu
> Tsi
> Shi
> Chi
> We say Mazda, its actually Matsuda.
> No get your hirogana and katakana out and start looking at
> some of the Athabascan names.

What on earth are you talking about? I do know a few things about
Japanese, so skip the elementary expositions and try to clarify the
logic of what you are arguing.

> >> Enchiniko "[one]-
> >> > two"-lake.
> >>
> >> if it were more like ichi-ni (still more Japanized Chinese
> >> words)
> >>
> >> > Naniko "What-what"-lake. And many more.
> >
> > I think this would be Nanika.
>
> In northern Japan some lakes end with ka or ko.
>
> > These are all Athabaskan languages we're talking about. Now
> > if you would just forget the place names stuff and focus on
> > Athabaskan "ko" meaning water, and probably Rilly Old
> > Chinese "ko" or "ku" or something meaning "lake", then you
> > would have taken the first step towards
> > Dene-Sino-Caucasian!
>
> Except you can't trace a single gene of north american ancestry
> to any chinese group older than 10 kya.

Better let Cavalli-Sforza know at once.

B46 haplotype speaks
> all,

A ha, another scientist with a closet deity.

> in addition the chinese have alot of dipthongs and Japanese
> names can be spoken often as if you were speaking spanish.

Look, Phil, I have to be frank -- this kind of superficial phonetic
comparison is completely worthless as evidence of anything.

> The Tlinglet HLA sit nicely into Japanese but better into Amur
> river and there are no good intermediate groups in between.

When
> you get serious

I am as serious as you could wish. You on the other hand appear to be a
dilettante.

 we can discuss the Ainu language, and the
> language of the peoples in the Amur region and I would be
> willing to bet you could find better examples between all three
> (Amur river, Ainu and Japanese) than you could find good
> examples south of the columbia river or north of the Yukon.

Better examples of what? You consider this stuff "examples" of
something?

> I would not be at all surprised if these were athabascans

I just told you they were. Apparently you didn't bother to check this
out before launching your Japanese theory.

> because the two recent groups that show great HLA similarity
> with the Japanese, Korean, Orochon, Amur river and Proximal
> regions are the Tlinglet and Athabascans (to a lessor degree).

Cool! So you can do Dene-Japano-Caucasian!

Ross Clark

> >> Just one "what", I think. And there's probably a "why the
> >> *** not?" lake in there if you keep looking.
>
> Niether in Japan or Native populations would that be acceptable.
> BTW folks can we clean up our language a little bit, just cause
> Septic is stealing peoples identity and cursing doesn't mean we
> have to also.
>