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24. How likely are chance resemblances between languages? |
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24. How likely are chance resemblances between languages? |
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This article is from the sci.lang FAQ, by Michael Covington (mcovingt@ai.uga.edu) and Mark Rosenfelder (markrose@zompist.com) with numerous contributions by others.
[--markrose]
It depends-- to an astonishing degree-- on the amount of phonetic and
semantic leeway you allow for a match. But in general the answer is
"Quite likely."
For the sort of comparisons that are often posted to sci.lang, where
perhaps just two consonants match, or nearly match, and the semantic
matchups are quirky, one can expect literally hundreds of random matches.
For a detailed discussion, see the web version of the FAQ.
Continue to:
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