Re: new book on the spread of IE

On Feb 15, 10:34 am, ekk...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Feb 12, 5:03 am, Harlan Messinger

<hmessinger.removet...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Franz Gnaedinger wrote:
On Feb 11, 10:08 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
No, Franzl, show us where archeology has told us anything about the
language spoken by the community uncovered. (Other, of course, than by
finding inscriptions.)

Just like the inscription

Peter asked you to produce an example other than, of course, an
inscription, and you respond with an inscription. Bravo.

Some interesting aspects of a language can be revealed/explained by
archeology, though.

Case in example. The arrival of voiceless labio-dental fricative /f/
to Chinese dialects is ubiqutous (this even happened in Vietnamese,
which is not exactly a Chinese dialect.)

It isn't the least bit a Chinese dialect.

Out of the 7 or so major
Chinese dialectal groups, only one group (Souther Min/Hoklo) did not
develop a voiceless labio-dental fricative. Now, you may not find that
very odd. The slightly odd thing is, the labiodental ones are re-
imported and re-mapped to velar fricative /h/. (The bi-labial
sometimes is preserved in colloquial terms: e.g: [pue1] = to fly, but
[hui1 ki1] = flying machine = airplane.)

E.g.: Mandarin [fa3] = law, mapped to Southern Min [huat4] (Middle
Chinese would have been something like [phat], like the Vietnamese
writing.)

Also in Taiwan's Austronesian languages, there are in general no
voiceless labio-dental fricatives. (Once I saw the language name
Favorlang, I had some doubt, but then when I really looked at the
language, e.g:http://books.google.com/books?id=vPetKol1y50C, I was re-
assured. I think the initial F in Favorlang was simply a Dutch
invention.)

Now you may not find all that interesting. Until you take a look at
ancient skull remains of the people across the Taiwan strait. Many
skulls are missing the canines or lateral incisors: teeth removal (鑿齒,
see e.g:http://www.tailian.org.cn/taiwan/yuanyuandetail.asp?ID=22) is
common ritual for a variety of reasons (adulthood or marriage, in
particular.)

When you are missing some front upper teeth, you can't really make
the /f/ sound.

What do "canines or lateral incisors" have to do with [f]?

How does tooth removal in some individuals affect an entire language
family?
.

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