# Nostratic?: a Debate **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 24, 2003, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541 "2003-07-24T03:43:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/1 "2003-07-24T03:43:41Z")
I’ve noticed over the past few months that many of the posters with whom I most enjoy a spirited discussion, on the same or opposite sides, are either professional linguists or philologists, studying to become such, or amateurs in the field like myself – **Monty, andygirl** , and **matt\_mcl** quickly come to mind. There’s a fairly established theory that links most (but not all) European languages with those spoken in Iran, Pakistan, and northern and central India in a Indo-European language phylum. Likewise, the Chinese group of languages, Burmese, Tibetan, and a number of less-well-known languages are united in the Sino-Tibetan phylum. The four major languages of south India plus a few others are in the Dravidian phylum. Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, and a number of small languages spoken in enclaves in Russia, are in the Finno-Ugric group, which may or may not be related to the Altaic group including Turkish and many of the languages of the steppe (Kazakh, Uzbek, etc.), the Mongolian group, and the Manchu-Tungus group. The Semitic tongues (today primarily Hebrew and Arabic) are united with four families from northern Africa, with Hausa the most common and best-known, in an Afro-Asiatic (formerly Hamito-Semitic) phylum. And so on. Each group is believed to have descended from a common set of dialects spoken, on average, about 4000 years ago. Scholars a decade or two ago proposed a grouping called “Nostratic” that joins several of these phylums together in a superphylum descended from a common group of dialects that would represent the ancestry of the vast majority of human tongues today. [This site](http://www.santafe.edu/~johnson/articles.nostratic.html) discusses the theory: > [@](#): > > If Dr. Manaster Ramer is right, his discovery will provide ammunition for a small group of linguists who make the controversial claim that Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic and other language families like Afro-Asiatic, which includes Arabic and Hebrew, the Kartvelian languages of the South Caucasus and the Dravidian languages concentrated in southern India, all are descendants of Nostratic, which was spoken more than 12,000 years ago. > > Most language experts remain highly skeptical of the Nostratic hypothesis, which enjoyed so much publicity in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s that it is sometimes described as the linguists’ version of cold fusion. “It would be terrific if it’s true, but we don’t want to jump to conclusions,” said Dr. Brian Joseph, a linguist at Ohio State University in Columbus. Dr. Joseph and Dr. Joe Salmons of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., are editing the book, " Nostratic: Evidence and Status" (John Benjamins)… So, linguageek Dopers, what’s your view? Did Nostratic exist? Or are the connections the chance coincidences, “false cognates,” that admittedly abound – the sorts of things that joined Mandan to Welsh and Quiché to Greek in the early days of research into language ancestry? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/2 "2003-07-24T10:33:30Z")
You forgot **Jomo Mojo**. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/3 "2003-07-24T11:01:26Z")
Ultimately there must have been _the_ ancestral language. Spoken by the first humanids. So logically there is _a_ common ancestor to Indo-European, Finn-Ugric and what have you. If you consider how much guesstimate work there is in the re-construction of Indo-European alone, plus that no one is sure what the original base area was, I hardly think that linguistics is a realistic tool to figure out tribal/cultural migrations and interrelationships of 12. bloody 000 years ago. DNA research can be a much bigger help in this regards, methinks. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/4 "2003-07-24T11:09:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Latro \* > \*\*Ultimately there must have been _the_ ancestral language. > Spoken by the first humanids. \*\* Unless several different tribes in different areas developed spoken language independently and relatively simultaneously (not inconceivable). ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/5 "2003-07-24T11:15:04Z")
Not necessarily **Latro** , there are two schools of thought on the origins of languages: monogenesis and polygenesis. monogenesis is the view that all languages have diverged from a common source whereas polygenesis is the view that language emerged more or less simultaenousy in several different places. There is also a third view that all extant languages emerged from a common source, though there were other languages that arose simulataneously, but have since become extinct. I myself think that monogenesis, especially given the out of Africa theory (and that the first humans out of Africa must of been anatomically modern humans), is correct. In this case it would seem the idea of Nostratic wouldn’t seem unlikely, however the evidence for Nostratic isn’t exactly great. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/6 "2003-07-24T11:22:46Z")
Not inconceivable, no. But the point is we’ll never know. I mean, just look at the number of migrations that we _do_ know about from history, say the last 2000 years. Can you imagine the staggering amount of population movements dating back to the split in races, back to the first out-of-Africa? ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/7 "2003-07-24T11:26:15Z")
Indeed, **MC** , With out-of Africa, I mean the modern human migration. BTW, I do not put much faith in the claim that Neanderthals didn’t have any language. So who knows, even they had some influence on things. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/8 "2003-07-24T13:00:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MC Master of Ceremonies \* > I myself think that monogenesis, especially given the out of Africa theory (and that the first humans out of Africa must of been anatomically modern humans), is correct. In this case it would seem the idea of Nostratic wouldn’t seem unlikely, however the evidence for Nostratic isn’t exactly great. \*\* OoA is functionally irrelevant to the langauge issue, as Big Bang is to Evolution. There is no reason to suppose at present that modern langauge usage and ability did not progress in a step wise fashion, gradually accreting funcitonality until full langauge was possible. As such, with small bands being the dominant form of social organization up until cvilization arises around 10-15k years ago, there is absolutely no reason to believe there was an overarching langauge or core. See, for example, the extreme diversity of Papau New Guinea and environs. There may be reaons to hypothesize, even with a likely extreme band/region based diversity in langauge, certain structural similarities (e.g. recent research on the click languages of East and Southern Africa), however that stirkes me as fundamentally a different question. further in re the Neander angle, this also strikes me as highly unlikely as anotamically they seem to have lacked the same voice functionality and concomitant brain development for full langauge ability, it seems unlikely Homo Sapiens borrowed much of anything from them in any shape or form. ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/9 "2003-07-24T13:07:48Z")
Collunsbury what I’m saying is that modern homo sapiens probably arose from a small area in sub-saharan Africa, these people would of been anatomically modern with full cabalities for speech. Language could of arisen in this small group and been spread by them as they migrated/interbreeded with surrounding groups spreading both moden human DNA and language. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/10 "2003-07-24T13:12:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MC Master of Ceremonies \* > \*\*Collunsbury what I’m saying is that modern homo sapiens probably arose from a small area in sub-saharan Africa, these people would of been anatomically modern with full cabalities for speech. Language could of arisen in this small group and been spread by them as they migrated/interbreeded with surrounding groups spreading both moden human DNA and language. \*\* I understand, however I point to examples of similar social structures- small, highly fragmented band based societies - which reflect extreme linguistic diversity. There may be some reason to hypothesize certain similar features in early langauge, but I see now reason that stands to close analytical scrutiny to suppose an early unified langauge or even langauges. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/11 "2003-07-24T13:14:37Z")
Languages spoken on the island of New Guinea, for all their diversity, fall into only two families: Indo-Pacific and Austronesian. ---
**Author:** ![Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/12 "2003-07-24T13:20:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > **Scholars a decade or two ago proposed a grouping called “Nostratic” that joins several of these phylums together in a superphylum descended from a common group of dialects that would represent the ancestry of the vast majority of human tongues today.** Nostratic is much older than a decade or two. It was first proposed in 1903. Most linguists today consider Nostratic and other theories of its type to be crackpottery. Go to sci.lang, where a fair amount of real linguists hang out, and propose a macrofamily language. You’ll see that you’ll either be ignored, laughed at, or gently educated in legitimate philology. I don’t understand the point of the discussion here if it’s between amateurs. How can you make a conclusion when you admit you have no formal training in the field? 😕 UnuMondo ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/13 "2003-07-24T13:22:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Collounsbury \* > \*\*I understand, however I point to examples of similar social structures- small, highly fragmented band based societies - which reflect extreme linguistic diversity. > \*\* Well, that may have to do with the fact that they live very isolated lives in the jungle. For the Nostratic theory to work you need a people in regular contact in a relatively small base area. That polpulation then explodes over a vast area _and_dominates the resident cultures. Same as with Indo\_European, only the distances are much much greater. ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/14 "2003-07-24T13:39:11Z")
The reason I favour mongenesis is that, polygenesis mainly seems to rely on attacking the evidence for monogenesis (such as structural simlairites in languages, which is admittedly only circumstantional though) rather than any real evidence for it (though of course evidence for mongenesis is still thin on the ground) and also on a personal level it just seems to me that language spreading from a single source seems more likely than it spontaneously arsing at the same time in different locations. I’m not a linguist, I’m a historian (well that’s what I’m trained as) and it’s the history of languages that interest me rather than the study of modern languages. In my experince Nostralic is seen as ‘nice theory, but where’s the evidence?’. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/15 "2003-07-24T14:22:00Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t understand the point of the discussion here if it’s between amateurs. How can you make a conclusion when you admit you have no formal training in the field? Er, you _have_ read Great Debates threads before, **UnuMondo** , no? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/16 "2003-07-24T14:48:50Z")
Oh, modern languages, huh? 😉 I guess if the theories of Nostratic language are considered crackpottery, there’s not much point in discussing whether or not Nostratic and the Sino-Dene archaic languages had a common ancestor in the form of the so-called S-Group, or whether or not Amerindian, Asiastic, and DeneCaucasian languages had a common ancestor? Or, to put it another way, I was under the impression that “Nostratic” was not the hypothetical language from which _all_ other languages (might have) descended, but was instead only the (hypothetical) ancestor of IndoEuropean (and related), EuroAsiatic (Sumerian, etc), and AfroAsiatic (Semitic, Berbar, etc) families; and that the “one origin” theories went farther back and attempted to pose a link between the Nostratic families and the various other ancestral families. Is this a pottery yet more cracked and even less in acceptance than what you are discussing here, or are the terms just used differently by different people? ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/17 "2003-07-24T14:55:19Z")
That’s right; why let the facts get in the way of a good debate? [Here is some more excellent nonsense](http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:i0TTYwN9DBoJ:library.thinkquest.org/C004367/la7.shtml+scan+nostratic&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) > [@](#): > > Some linguists aggressively combine language families into larger and larger groups. For example, one group of linguists seeks to combine reconstructed words of Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic, and two more precursor languages into one larger early language called Nostratic. They argue that Nostratic was spoken by hunter-gatherers who originated somewhere in the Middle ast. > > Going even further into highly speculative territory, some lump Nostratic with another reconstruction called Amerind, derived from American Indian languages. Sino-Caucasian is formed from Asian language families, and some take this to its logical conclusion and combine these two combinations into one progenitor language dubbed SCAN. > If all the combinations of these linguists are accepted, they would lead to six world language families: SCAN in Eurasia, the Americas, and upper Africa; Austric in Southeast Asia and the Pacific; Khoisan and Congo-Saharan in lower Africa; Australian; and New Guinean. Some genetic evidence indicates that these language groupings correlate at least roughly with the distributions of genetic differences among modern peoples… * * * SF worldbuilding at [http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html](http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html) ---
**Author:** ![ethic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@ethic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethic)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/18 "2003-07-24T15:30:20Z")
Slight hijack… > [@](#): > > I don’t understand the point of the discussion here if it’s between amateurs. How can you make a conclusion when you admit you have no formal training in the field? A little haughty no? Spoken from the Ivory Tower? Knowledge can be aquired in informal ways. Sometimes that leads people along relevant epistemic paths which may be missed when your inner vision is blurred by the traditions of your field. One of the beauties of a high caliber open forum like GD, is that anyone who can apply their minds to a topic can talk across the introverted boarders of their specialities, regardless of their training. Didn’t want to interupt this thread too much. Go on, very interesting subject… ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/19 "2003-07-24T15:51:56Z")
I never did historical lx when I was doing my degree, so this is all my own gleanings. Cum grano salis, if you please. One problem with discussion of this type (and possibly what UnuMondo is referring to, though I would prefer to do it in a less haughty manner) is that occasionally somebody will take two languages, say Hebrew and Quechua, and generate a long list of “cognates” between the two languages, and go, “Hey! If these two far-apart languages are that similar, they must have come from a common ancestor! Eureka - Nostratic!” or something of the sort Naturally enough, these are spurious; I once saw it demonstrated, in fact, that statistically speaking you are _more_ likely to find similar-sounding words than not, especially if you allow a certain looseness in lexical meaning. It doesn’t mean anything at all that there’s an Australian aboriginal language whose word for dog is “dog.” It’s just a coincidence. Furthermore, real cognates are rarely that compelling. For example, the English word “wheel” is, in fact, a cognate of the Sanskrit “chakra,” following a rigorously-defined set of sound changes; but nobody generating such a "list of ‘cognates’ " would ever include such a thing. As for the OP, Nostratic to me is a compelling hypothesis, but I don’t think, as things are going now, we have a hope of proving it. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541/20 "2003-07-24T16:01:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by matt\_mcl \* > It doesn’t mean anything at all that there’s an Australian aboriginal language whose word for dog is “dog.” It’s just a coincidence. Uhm, were there dogs in Australia before the Europeans came? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostratic-a-debate/190541.md?page=2)