User:BentRedNewt/Drafts

The *tik/*pal Challenge
There is no clear consensus among linguists as to the acceptability of the Nostratic hypothesis, though there is agreement that there is too little definitely known about the subject to allow it to serve as a sound theoretical foundation for further work (in contrast to the well-established and universally accepted Indo-European hypothesis).

Among the more persuasively presented etymological demonstrations is the proposition that Nostratic *tik meant "one" or "finger" --


 * toe < Proto-Germanic *taihwo; Proto-Indo-European *deik- 'to show, point' > in-dic-ate, digit, in-dex; *dekm 'ten' > decimal; ten, Latin dicare 'to say' > diction, dictate; Fon d^okpa 'one'; Ewe deka 'one'; Proto-Afro-Asiatic *tak 'one', Oromo toko 'one', Berber tukod 'finger', Hausa (d^aya) tak 'only one'; Udmurt odig 'one'; Komi et'ik 'one'; Turkish tek 'only, single'; Mongolian nik-en 'one'; Korean ttayki 'one thing', teki 'one guy', Old Korean tek 'ten'; Japanese te 'hand'; Eskimo tiq-(iq) 'index finger'; Proto-Yeniseian *tok 'finger'; Ancient Chinese t'iek 'single, one'; Proto-Tibeto-Burman *tyik 'one', Tibetan (g-)tsig 'one'; Burmese tahku 'one'; Tlingit tl'eeq 'finger', tlek 'one'; Navajo l/a' 'one'; Papuan dik 'one'; Proto-Austroasiatic (k-)tig 'arm, hand', Vietnamese tay 'hand', Khmer tai 'hand', Munda ti' 'hand', Orang Asli tik 'hand'; Proto-Miao-Yao *nto' 'finger', Miao Hmong txhai-te 'hand'; Proto-Austronesian *(tu-)ding 'point with the finger', Malay tangan 'hand'; Nootka takwa 'only'; Cherokee sakwa 'one'; Pawnee uska 'finger'; Mohawk tsi'er 'finger'; Quapaw chak 'finger'; Karok tik 'finger, hand'; Washo tsek 'finger'; Quechua sok 'one'; Yagua teki 'one'; Katembri tika 'toe'; Kukura tikua 'finger'

and *pal meant "two" --


 * Proto-Bantu badi 'two'; Nubian bar(-si) 'twin'; Proto-Indo-European *pol 'half', Sanskrit (ka-)palam 'half', Russian pol 'half'; Proto-Uralic pälä 'half', Hungarian fél 'half', Votyak pal 'side, half'; Tamil pâl 'part, portion, share'; Andaman -pol 'two'; Proto-Austalian *bula 'two'; Munda bar 'two'; Khmer pir 'two'; Orang Asli ber- 'two'; Javanese ke-bar 'doubled'; Wintun palo(-l) 'two'; Chiripo bor 'two'; Quechua pula 'both'

Vitaly Shevoroshkin suggested that the hypothesis could be falsified, and the technique of mass lexical comparison invalidated, if one could demonstrate with equal persuasiveness that in fact *pal meant "one," "finger" and *tik meant "two" -- that is, the "*tik/*pal challenge" invites investigators to show that the evidence is merely the imposition of pattern on random data.

However, Joseph Salmons found serious problems with the methodology and assumptions underlying Merritt Ruhlen's version of the*tik hypothesis. Among his criticisms, he notes that alleged reflexes of *tik appearing in only a few languages of a massive family are presumed to be present in the proto-language; forms from four different time depths (attested forms, shallow-time-depth proto-languages, remote-time-depth proto-languages, and speculative large phyla, such as Amerind) are treated equally, increasing the chances of finding "cognates"; and languages from poorly-studied families show forms almost identical to *tik, but well-studied families show forms hardly recognizable as related to *tik (such as French /dwa/, doigt) (Trask 1996:394-5). The semantic and phonological leeway allowed among forms has also been widely criticised (for example, comparing Pawnee uska, "finger" with Malay tangan, "hand" as cognates in the above table).


 * A criticism of the methods used to reconstruct Nostratic or Proto-World
 * How Likely are Chance Resemblances Between Languages