Re: Languages of Africa

From: Anti-imperialist (ai_at_anti-imperialist.net)
Date: 09/21/04 

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 15:53:51 -0700

"Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
>
> Anti-imperialist wrote:
> > >
> > > Jacques Guy wrote:
> > > >
<nothing important, as usual>
 
> > So far, he has managed to resolve the consonantal correspondences of the
> > Halmaheran, South Bird’s Head, West Bomberai, Nimboran and Upper Tami
> > groups and made substantial progress on the Timor-Alor-Pantar, Bird’s
> > Head, East Bird’s Head, Mairasi-Tanah Merah, Kwerba, Tor, Pauwasi and
> > Senagi groups. This has resulted in the generation of citable protoforms
> > along with the resolution of a number of low-level classification issues
> > and the correction of erroneous dialect assignations found in the
> > literature.
> >
> > Altogether, these groups comprise the major western peninsulas of Irian
> > Jaya (Bird’s Head, Bomberai) and the northern half of mainland Irian
> > Jaya, and include some of the families whose classifications are most
> > disputed (to the extent there has been a debate at all). Tim has
> > developed a workflow system which exploit his pre-existing lexical
> > databases with maximal efficiency, greatly reducing the time needed to
> > discern and support proposed correspondences. The immediate goal of the
> > project is to feasibly envision a preliminary reconstruction of all New
> > Guinean families for which there is sufficient data. As correspondences
> > are resolved and protoforms discovered, they are checked against Tim's
> > vast lists of Greenberg-style comparisons in order to confirm or falsify
> > previously proposed connections and to bring outcomparisons to bear on
> > family-level issues. Slowly but surely, these lists are taking on the
> > manner and reliability of an etymological dictionary, the ultimate goal
> > of this project. This improved dataset will provide the basis for the
> > definitive resolution of Indo-Pacific taxonomy at the highest levels, as
> > well as providing ample source material for the reconstruction of the
> > most ancient proto-languages.
> >
> > Thought you said "it disappeared without a trace"? :P
>
> Of course you didn't put a date on this.

Doesn't have a date. It's the Santa Fe Workshop. It's a weblink.

 Nor a title on Wurm 1971, which
> was published _before_ G's IP.

I think the Wurm stuff is:

Wurm, SA (1975). New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study Volume 1

Wurm, SA (1976). New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study Volume 2

That would be after Greenberg's I-P in 1971.

Hmm I didn't even know Greenberg was dead, what do you know. Died in
2001. 

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