Kusunda,spoken by about 5 people in western nepal has some word spelling and meanings similiar to those in papuan languages.
Language in nepal believed to be related to papuan languages.
by badboy 6 Replies latest jw friends
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Leolaia
You sure have a knack for coming up with obscure topics.
Here is the original paper making the argument:
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/15/5692.full?ck=nck
It is quite unconvincing to me because it is heavily based on the flawed Greenberg model of macrofamily relationships (in particular, the disputed family Indo-Pacific, which links together Andaman with all the Papuan languages). For one critical reaction to the paper, see the following:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001038.html
Also the Wiki article on Kusunda notes that the argument for an "Indo-Pacific" origin of Kusunda is not based on the most recent, accurate data:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kusunda_language
I am personally very skeptical of the original paper's claim that Kusunda is probably "a remnant of the original migration to New Guinea and Australia rather than a backtracking to Nepal from the region in which other Indo-Pacific languages are spoken currently". Not only are such "backtrackings" very common in human migration but the time depth assumed here (on the order of 40-30,000 years) far exceeds the threshold for establishing linguistic relationship beyond chance similarity (which I put the average maximum time depth at about 10,000 years). It seems much more probable that the language (currently an isolate) branched off or was influenced (via linguistic borrowing) by a now-extinct Andaman-type langauge on the Asian mainland more recently (within the past 10,000 years). It does look like Kusunda is a vestige of a now extinct language family that existed in south Asia prior to the Sino-Tibetan and Indic peoples moved into the region, much like how Basque is an isolate that represents the kind of language spoken in western Europe prior to the incursion of Indo-European speakers.
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badboy
bttttt
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snowbird
You sure have a knack for coming up with obscure topics.
Forgive the pun, but I guess he's giving old Noah a rest.
Sylvia
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keyser soze
What language did Noah speak on the ark?
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badboy
NOW THERE A GOOD QUESTION!
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betterdaze
Noah spoke many languages on the ark.
Jehovah God in His wisdom lovingly sent Noah a Dr. Dolittle instructional DVD before He released the ever-present water canopy and destroyed every living thing on the planet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpBPavEDQCk&feature=player_embedded#
(Noah learned very quickly; they were closer to perfection back then.)
~Sue