Talk:Dené–Caucasian languages

Tables of Sound Correspondences

Would someone please be so good as to transcribe this from Starostin's eclectic Americanist-IPA mixture into IPA?

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 22:36 CET | 2006/3/9

Hi, I'll try to, but I'm quite busy at the moment. Sorry for the "eclectic Americanist-IPA mixture" :-). I was in a hurry, so, to an extent, I copied the table from the original. Patience brings fruits ;-). I'll transcribe the sounds according to the system described in http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/pref1.pdf (pages 11-20). So, if you have some spare time, you can look at it, too.

Petusek --Pet'usek 15:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

In order to provide the reader with both transcription systems, I've left the original version as it is, adding the IPA version below.

Petusek --Pet'usek 01:41, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I guess we could unite the two corr. tables, perhaps, intertwining the original transcription columns with the IPA ones. But I'm too busy to do so now. Feel free to try ;-)

Petusek--Pet'usek 11:18, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Wow! I'm impressed!!! If I'll find the time I'll try to verify it – off the top of my head, Starostin's ä should be [æ]. (Perhaps I'll also try to intertwine the transcriptions, but IPA alone should be enough, once we get it right!)

Yesterday I read Starostin's transcription. Thanks for the link! That transcription is not even consistent across languages.

I just added Lucida Sans Unicode to the fonts (as the least preferred possibility). This is available on my not quite new Internet Explorer version while Arial Unicode MS is not. But I'll try to get an update; I still can't see everything on this computer.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 12:44 CET | 2006/3/11

David, thanks. Correcting/Converting so much data (almost character by character), I can't have avoided some mistakes, [æ] being among them. Anyway, I still think we should include both transcriptions in order to provide the reader with some clue, 'cause otherwise s/he'll get lost in the PDF's (and ToB databases), being unable to read all those expressions and reconstructions.

Or we could just make a conversion table, comparing the traditional transcription with the IPA. What do you think?

By the way, why does Wikipedia display UTC after my signature (instead of CET, as I'm from the Czech Rep.)?

Petusek --Pet'usek 17:00, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I'm not sure which characters symbolize single phonemes, which are biphonematic, etc. In a way, Starostin's trancription (especially in the case of affricates) is a bit more economical than the IPA. It also reflects traditional practices. Certainly, the time has come to change the tradition and be modern :-), however, I'm afraid I'll have to ask G. Starostin (S. A. Starostin's son) for some help and ellucidation.

Petusek --Pet'usek 17:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

It may not matter which are single phonemes and which are random collisions of phonemes. For example there is a discussion whether Danish has a phoneme /ɕ/ or whether that's just the random collision /sj/ (which it clearly was in Old Norse). Phonemes can split and merge. Taking into account the baffling complexity of the North Caucasian consonant systems, we have to assume a lot of such events.

I'll add IPA tie bars to the word-comparisons table in a minute.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 1:20 CEST | 2006/5/1

I thank all of you, who have corrected my mistakes. I'm quite new to Wikipedia, so I haven't learnt its editing yet.

BUT

I wonder who deleted the IPA table I worked on :-(. Can you imagine how much time it took me to make? It wasn't perfect, but it was the first step. Fortunately, I have it on my HDD, so I can put it back, if you agree.

--Pet'usek 13:09, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that, was being a tad over-zealous.

All right :-) Forgiven. Next time, could you, please, let me know before you delete what I've written, or, at least, explain to me why you've done so? Thanks ;-) People won't learn from their mistakes if they don't realize them, you know?

--Pet'usek 15:24, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't delete anything and didn't write the above anonymous comment. -- However, I do wonder if we should even keep the rather boring phoneme correspondence table. Examples of cognate words would be a lot more interesting to a lot more people. Bengtson's Mother Tongue article, linked to at the bottom of the article page, has such a comparison of Basque and some Caucasian languages.

The reason why CET is displayed after my signature is that my signature is completely hand-written. I haven't got an account, I'm not logged in. :-)

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 23:08 CET | 2006/3/12

I see. Actually, as for the comments, I wasn't addressing you, but the anonymous "tad overzealous" :-) I'm currently working on several wordlists, but as I've written already, I'm too busy to finish them, say, during the next week or two. So you'll either have to work on them for yourself (which I guess might be a fun) or wait ;-). Anyway, I would insist on keeping the tables (the IPA one, at least), so that anyone has them at hand and can check the lexica, which I promise to be working on. I've just realized there are more or less competing models within the community of Dene-Caucasian adherents. They might not necessarily contradict, but seem to prove the hypothesis independently. Today, googling for some information, I found a mention of an article named "Athapascan and Sino-Tibetan". Edward Vajda, on the other hand, proposes a stronger Athabascan-Eyak-Tlinit-Yeniseian (+ maybe Burushaski) ties, whereas John Bengtson & Václav Blažek postulated the Macro-Caucasian hypothesis. That's interesting. As if an old dialect continuum was being gradually discovered. We'll see what comes out of it :-)

In Preparation

Phonological changes. I've got no time to put them into a tabular form. If anybody can do that, I'll be grateful. I'm planning to include examples as well, but it'd take me a lot of time, since it's difficult to input all those special characters.

PDC > Vasconic

Stops

Labials

• 1. PDC *p > Bq *p
• 2. PDC *p'> Bq *b-, *p
• 3. PDC *b > Bq *b

Dentals

• 4. PDC *t > Bq *t
• 5. PDC *t'> Bq *t
• 6. PDC *d > Bq *t-, *d

Sibilant Affricates

Alveolar

• 7. PDC *s >
• 8. PDC *t͡s > Bq *ɕ/t͡ɕ[+U], *s/t͡s
• 9. PDC *t͡s' > Bq *ɕ/t͡ɕ[+U], *s/t͡s
• 10. PDC *d͡z > Bq *s

Alveo-palatal

• 11. PDC *ɕ > *s- /= orth. z/
• 11. PDC *t͡ɕ > Bq *s
• 12. PDC *t͡ɕ' > Bq *t͡ɕ- /= orth. tx > some Eastern dialects *ʃ = orth. x/, *s /= orth. z/, *ɕ[+k/t] /= orth. -sk-, -st-/, *-t͡s /= orth. -tz/
• 13. PDC *d͡ʑ > Bq *s, *-t͡s /= orth. -tz/

Post-alveolar

• 14. PDC *ʃ >
• 13. PDC *t͡ʃ > Bq *ɕ, *t͡ɕ
• 14. PDC *t͡ʃ' > Bq *t͡ɕ- /= orth. tx > some Eastern dialects *ʃ = orth. x/, *s /= orth. z/, *ɕ[+k/t] /= orth. -sk-, -st-/, *-t͡s /= orth. -tz/
• 15. PDC *d͡ʒ > Bq *s, *-t͡s /= orth. -tz/

Word Lists

--Pet'usek 23:44, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I won't have time this week or next, so we'll see :-)

Many thanks for the extra information! Someone should work this into the article sometime. :-)

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 23:55 CET | 2006/3/13

We have to rewrite the first paragraph. It's not only incorrect. It's just...awful. I'll try to do so. Hopefully, someone will correct my English. :-)

We also have to rebuild the table of cognates. It wasn't intended as a table of all cognates in all languages, but a short example. Oh dear, so much work in front of me! :-)

It is a short example – Bengtson's table from his "final response" in Mother Tongue. I transcribed it and then tried to find the orthographies. Sorry, I didn't have time to explain this here.

In explaining V and H I tried to keep it simple ( = to explain the jargon instead of using it). "Laryngeal" may not even be correct; this imprecise term includes glottal, probably epiglottal and maybe pharyngeal sounds, but why can't H be [χ] or [x]?

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 20:42 CET | 2006/3/19

David, as far as I know, the term "LARYNGEAL" is only vaguely used when speaking of Proto-Indo-European reconstructions, where the original quality of H(1-3/4) is uncertain (though some argue the place of articulation could have been the velum). Otherwise, the term is used strictly to denote glottal sounds, hence "glottal" = "laryngeal". Yet, I understand some Indoeuropeanists might get confused, so feel free to change it into "glottal" if you like ;-). Anyway, I'm currently reading several papers by J.D.Bengtson. I've got a great source of new information now and I'm making notes and trying to turn them into a readable form :-). Yet a lot of work remains ahead of me! Look forward to many more tables, comparisons, detailed phonological and morphological descriptions, as well as cognates from Na-Dene! :-) It seems, however, that the Basque section (let's liberate the poor little tonguee from its isolationist jail! :-)) will be the most abundant. --Pet'usek 18:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I also suggest that we reduce the tables somehow, perhaps by joining them.

Great. I just changed "laryngeal" to "glottal or epiglottal consonant" because this seems to be how Starostin uses it.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 14:39 CET | 2006/3/30