Re: Payngo = Fist & Austronesian Numerals

richard01 wrote:

On 17 Dec, 20:19, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Dec 17, 6:07 am, richard01 <richardparke...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:





On 15 Dec, 00:10, richard01 <richardparke...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I'm new to this group, but have been reading through some of the
archives.

I forget where, but someone mentionedpayngo= Nostratic 'fist', so I
looked up the Science article at:http://tinyurl.com/2cwpx6
and it seems it's considered so.

I'm researching Austronesian number words and systems and have noticed
a distinct tendency towards 'bang' words, associated with numbers 4,
5, and 6 and even 9 (usually related to 'hand' in some way) in both
Papuan and Austronesian languages.
Part of my numbers chart, with 'bang' words highlighted, is at:http://www.coconutstudio.com/Bang%20fist%20words.xls

Comments please?
Plus - any additions ?

regards

Richard

I just found the original quote:

analys...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote: 3 Nov

[snip]

let us take "pancha" in sanskrit and "penta" in Greek. Golly, gee
that shows Sanskrit and Greek are "cognates" but Tamil's
"Eindu" doesn't fit. But then Nostratic or proto-world postulates
"payngo" as the root for "fist" and is able to relate dozens of
languages including Tamil.
Some of your Tamil-English resemblances might be consequences of a
remoter Nostratic or Proto-World relation between them. But this does
not replace or abolish IE, any more than recognizing IE as a family
eliminates Germanic or Slavic.
Actually thats an enormous concession from the official position.

Benlizros replied: There is no "official position" any more than there
is an "official
list" of cognates.

Sorry to all: This is a troll to try and get my first post considered
amongst all the spam around.-

We were being polite. You won't find much support for "Nostratic"
among the world's linguists, and why would you sugggest comparing
Austronesian with "Nostratic" anyway?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

We were being polite. You won't find much support for "Nostratic"
among the world's linguists, and why would you sugggest comparing
Austronesian with "Nostratic" anyway?

Well, I expected a response like that. The 'world's linguists', from
my limited experience of contact with them, seem irrepressibly smug,
patronising and complacent, especially in their reliance on a
'comparative method' that hasn't been given a make-over for more than
a century.

Unfortunately make-overs of theory aren't quite as simple as on reality
TV. As Peter says, the method has been subjected to plenty of scrutiny
in recent decades; it's just that nobody has come up with anything
radically different which works as well.

As for Nostratic, perhaps it's worth considering the first few numbers
in Proto-Indo-European

*Proto-Indo- European
*oynos/*sem *duwô *treyes *kwetwores *penkwe

with:
*Proto-Austronesian:
*esa/isa *duSa *telu *Sepat *lima
*Proto-Oceanic:
*sa-kai, *ta-sa/*tai/*kai , *rua, *tolu, *pat/*pati/*pani, *lima

and asking just why the first four numbers of each are so remarkably
cognate.

Franz Bopp actually fancied an AN/IE relation, partly on the basis of
1-4, but he was also fooled by Sanskrit loanwords in Javanese etc. Once
you put those aside, nothing regular shows up.


*penkwe in PIE is obviously cognate with 'payngo' in Nostratic, (and
'poing' (fist) in French or 'punch' in English), but in no way with
*lima in PAn.

But it certainly is with a number of words - 'bang', 'mengen', pinggi'
and so on (from number words around 5) from both Papuan and
Austronesian languages.
---------------------------------------
A very eminent Austronesian linguist recently sent me the draft for
his (in press) Numbers chapter from his forthcoming tome - 'The
Austronesian Languages'.

It included this:
"Seimat, alone among the languages of the Admiralty islands , also has
a true quinary system, with the structure 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5+1, 5+2,
5+3, 5+4, 2x5. Although this may seem like a drastic departure from
the decimal system that these languages inherited from a remote common
ancestor, even more drastic innovations in numeral systems are found
in some AN languages of New Guinea , where they clearly reflect Papuan
contact influence."

Seimat is 100 miles across open ocean from the only 'other Admiralty
Island', Manus, where some 18 languages share a very unique number
system, and has no relation whatsoever with them, although it has been
squeezed into the same language grouping.

"where they clearly reflect Papuan contact influence" - I haven't yet
come across a single instance where a local Austronesian language has
borrowed number words directly from any still-existing neighbour.
(Except for the Ekagi words for 6-9, which I am still working on).

----------------------------------------
"..may seem like a drastic departure from the decimal system that
these languages inherited from a remote common ancestor, even more
drastic innovations in numeral systems are found in some AN languages
of New Guinea"...

How, exactly, do any very obviously less-developed number systems
become 'innovations'?

You need to rethink your assumption that composite numerals are
necessarily survivals from an earlier stage.

------------------------------------------
and this:

"....The Banoni (Solomons) numeral system is equally puzzling and
difficult to classify.....the Banoni system used for counting anything
other than round objects is said to be 1. kadaken, 2. toom, 3. dapisa,
4. tovatsi, 5. ghinima, 6. bena, 7. bena tom, 8. bena kapisa, 9. visa,
10. manogha....The first six numerals are represented by independent
morphemes, but "7 " appears to be 6+2 and "8 " appears to be 6+3".

"bena" is our old 'Nostratic' friend, payngo=fist, and all they did
was leave out the "+1"

Not necessarily. There's a similar pattern in some Vanuatu languages
where the element in question is something like "rave". Without looking
up exact forms, you get something like 6. lima rave (tesa), 7. lima rave
rua, etc. So the rave (or bena) element can be understood as "plus" or
"extra". Some languages, as you say, leave out the "l" in "6", but that
doesn't mean the 6-9 element means "five". I'd see the same thing going
on in Banoni. Blust's last clause is a little misleading, then, unless
you put heavy emphasis on _appears_.

Ross Clark
.

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