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Document Details : Title: Soqotran Oral Tradition and Cross-Cultural Contacts Subtitle: Colour Designations Author(s): NAUMKIN, Vitaly , PORKHOMOVSKY, Victor Journal: ARAM Periodical Volume: 8    Issue: 2   Date: 1996    Pages: 285-291 DOI: 10.2143/ARAM.8.2.2002200 Abstract : Cultural parallels and similarities in different cultural-historical areas may have at least four possible explanations, namely: A common genesis from an attested or reconstructable archetype. Cross-cultural loans and influences. General regularities of cultural evolution. Chance coincidences. Which of these explanations to choose is a typical problem in linguistics, especially within the framework of the genealogical classification of languages. Some of these points do not present serious difficulties for a linguist. Chance coincidences are normally rare and non-systematic, and they are therefore easily identifiable. This is not the case in the context of cross-cultural studies, where coincidences might be exceedingly difficult to identify, as in the case of the striking similarities between Soqotran and Old Norse mythological motifs concerning goats, as described in our paper presented at the Seminar for Arabian studies in 1995.

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