Subject: Re: [lojban] aymara once more

From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:21:57 +0300

[email-masked] wrote:
> I'm not sure whether Basque is still a totally isolated langauge
> (I seem to remember some deep stuff on the edges of the Nostratic
> people making a connection with Caucasian)

There is the Dené-Caucasian theory, which would have it that Basque,
North Caucasian (alias Ibero-Caucasian), Yenisseian, Burushaski,
Sinitic (or Sino-Tibetan) and Na-Dené are related. Crucially,
the leading Vasconists (Larry Trask et al.) reject the idea
of Basque being related to anything at all.

> but most people seem to hold that Aymara and Quechua
> are as unrelated as two American langauges can be.

Well, it is fair to mention that the term `Quechumaran' exists,
but perhaps that was never meant to denote anything more than an
areal grouping. The general opinion is in fact that the large
shared vocabulary (larger than in the case of Spanish and Basque)
is due to such factors as borrowing and/or a common substrate.

--Ivan