Re: Polynesian and South American place names

From: Yuri Kuchinsky (yuku_at_trends.ca)
Date: 08/23/04 

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 13:56:46 -0400

Merlijn De Smit wrote:
>
> (snip)
>
> >
> > Well, you may actually have a point there somewhere, Merlijn... :)
> >
> > After all, the Finnish language is a bit of an outlier in Europe, and
> > there are some connections with Siberia/Asia.
> >
> > So why not also with the Pacific region?
>
> Well, a lot of the Finnish place-names listed here have quite
> transparent etymologies: Pori < Swedish Borg, Porojärvi 'Reindeer
> lake', Poronkylä 'Reindeer village' (unlikely to be found in the
> Pacific), Puromäki 'Brook hill', etc. So what it comes down to is what
> someone else posted in the list: one would need to demonstrate that
> the place-names are semantically similar as well as phonologically
> before positing a possible common origin. Because if you go by
> phonological similarities alone, it will be too easy to find common
> toponyms among any two languages that are not too dissimilar in their
> surface phonology (and, needless to say, with 6000 languages averaging
> at perhaps 40 phonemes or so, you'll find a lot of unrelated languages
> with similar surface phonology).
>
> There may be connections with Finnish and the Pacific region - but the
> wrong end of the Pacific, namely, .

Merlijn,

Why do you think that this should be "the wrong end"?

The Aleut islands are right next to Alaska, which is where a
lot of Native cultures are found with demonstrated
archaeological and cultural links to the Polynesians.

> Genetic
> relationships between Uralic and Eskaleut, as well as some
> Paleosiberian languages (Yukaghir, Chukchi) have been proposed, but
> their time-depth stretches historical linguistics to the limits.
>
> M.

I guess I'll be the first to suggest that the Finnish
language may have some Austronesian elements? <horror!>

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky -=O=- http://www.trends.ca/~yuku

Re: LOOSE COMPANY PREFERRED BY HERETICS. UNGODLINESS THE
EFFECT OF THEIR TEACHING:

"It has also been a subject of remark, how extremely
frequent is the intercourse which heretics hold with
magicians, with mountebanks, with astrologers, with
philosophers; and the reason is, that they are men who
devote themselves to curious questions. "Seek, and ye shall
find," is everywhere in their minds. Thus, from the very
nature of their conduct, may be estimated the quality of
their faith. In their discipline we have an index of their
doctrine." -=O=- Tertullian -=O=- THE PRESCRIPTION AGAINST
HERETICS, Ch. 43

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