Getting closer to the Eurasian super-family

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130507074657.htm

The University of Reading team has putatively discovered words that have persisted over vast expanses of time and, now, vast expanses of territory from Eskimo-Aleut to Indo-European.

Robert

The University of Reading press office seems to have a knack for this. This is the same work that the media interpreted in 2009 as having identified the oldest English words (be sure to click more links at the bottom of that LL post for how out of hand it gets). And that earlier this year got turned from proposing a test of glottochronology by checking works dated by other means into a definitive dating of Homer to 762 BCE.

ETA: post at Language Log on these ultraconserved words.

Not sure I'm persuaded of the method, but striking ideas and very interesting argument.