Thread:User talk:Rua/Unexplained deletions: continuing what appears to be a common theme/reply (10)

Wow, these are some interesting examples you've dug up. An answer to our querent, I would mention that, when I was at a conference of Indo-European scholars last month, one of the speakers brought up the concept of Nostratic in his talk, eliciting a hearty chuckle from those assembled. More generally, the field of long-range comparative linguistics (or "paleolinguistics" for those that  believe  it) normally does not use the same methods of rigorous historical phonological and morphological reconstruction as the historical linguistic mainstream, instead relying heavily on word lists often containing accidental resemblances. To be fair, I know that the adherents of Altaic are growing steadily, and that particularly proposal may bear further consideration soon, but Indo-Uralic and Nostratic, no way.