Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net  Fri Jan 28 01:19:16 2005
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 20:12:36 -0700 (MST)
From: Koontz John E <John.Koontz@Colorado.EDU>
To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish
In-Reply-To: <200501270453.j0R4rkm3022971@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501271943070.17024@spot.colorado.edu>
References: <200501270453.j0R4rkm3022971@mail2.alphalink.com.au>

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Jacques Guy wrote:
> I just did a Google search and found far too many hits (Piraha, from
> unknown just a few months ago, is now quite popular, isn't it?) ...
>
> I must say that I am starting to be a bit skeptical. ...
>
> Oh, granted, "nui" in the language of Easter Island means both "big" and
> "many", but I am starting to smell a hoax of Tasaday size ...

I can't attest to Piraha personally, but Daniel Everett has certainly been
been getting away with it since 1979.

His original U of Pittsburgh web site:

http://web.archive.org/web/20001206044500/amazonling.linguist.pitt.edu/

His current academic site:

http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/DE/DEHome.html

The region in which Piraha is found is famous for languages that seem to
exist to prove that some supposed linguistic universal or another is at
best a statistical tendency.  Another example is Hixkaryana, a Carib
language which (debatably) has OVS (object verb subject) word order.
Whether or not OVS per se it is definitely a bit unusual.  There are
several other similar (OVS) languages in the area as well as languages
with other rare word orders.