Re: D!

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

bfarnell@xxxxxxx wrote:
 
> I concur.  Without having read any reference to it before, I was
> absolutely stunned one day after several weeks of pondering when it
> jumped out at me that it was so incredibly like Chinese, and I have
> quite a bit of knowledge of Chinese to base that on.  However, after
> looking through some of the details, it seems less and less likely.  The
> fact that I and someone else (was Jaques Guy the originator?)

Sort of, but I did not quite believe in it. It was Jorge Stolfi
who uncovered evidence that  it behaved very much like Chinese. And,
upon reading, I was convinced, willy-nilly, mostly nilly, but the
evidence is there.


> but the cursory comparisons I made to Chinese dialects seemed to
> indicate that it was likely one of the dialects of the Fujian region.
> This was based on a casual examination of the number of tones (with
> gallows as tone markers) and the requirement for a large number of
> options for finals.  These dialects are very difficult, and there is
> little reference material for them.  They exhibit not only very
> complicated tone sandhi, but also a very complicated sandhi with
> initials based on the previous finals.

That is interesting. I only know Mandarin, and a very, very little
Cantonese and Shanghaihua (more properly: Zã-è-u). But, long
ago, before and quite independently from the "Chinese theory"
I had written on this list that Voynichese seemed, to me, to
have complex internal and external sandhi. Is the Chinese
theory risen from the grave again? Will time tell? Stay tuned...