Basically, while searching for something a few weeks ago, I came across a (web page) reference stating that recently some Russian linguistic experts came up with a paper proposing that
a) language evolved once and only once,
b) all existing languages evolved from that same primordial tongue, and
c) there are only eight families (or super-families, maybe) into which all languages can be shoe-horned. (Therefore, no isolates)
Unfortunately, I can’t find where I came across it. I didn’t mark it, and don’t recall names or specifics.
While I am no expert in langwidges and lingwistics, I do know that the “ultimate origin” is almost certainly unknowable, but the question here is:
Has anyone heard of these findings, and what is the opinion of the “linguistics community” on them?
Most experts in linguistics are sceptical about reconstructing languages any further back than the level of Indo-European (about 5000-6000 years ago) or just possibly Afro-Asiatic (8000-10000 years ago). The most popular theory of a superfamily combining the currently reconstructed families is Nostratic. In the earliest formulation by Holger Pederson (in 1903), this family included Indo-European, Kartvelian, Afro-Asiatic, Dravidian, Uralic, Altaic, Chukchi-Kamchatkan, and Eskimo-Aleut. The most recent formulation of this theory by Joseph Greenberg says that Eurasiatic (his name for the superfamily) includes Indo-European, Kartvelian, Uralic, Altaic, Chukchi-Kamchatkan, Ainu, Gilyak, and Eskimo-Aleut. Most linguists aren’t convinced. See question 22 on this page:
“Isolates” refers to Basque and the handful of other languages that are not related to any other. I don’t follow the Russian researchers theory (and IAMALingust), but it sounds like crap to me, at least from the way it’s presented in the OP. How do they account for Basque?
You know, Mjollinar, I wouldn’t be at all surprised when those “researchers” dropped the other shoe and suddenly announced that the original language of humanity was Russian.
Very funny sarcasm, Monty. In fact, the reconstructed language is called Proto-World and it has no particular resemblance to Russian.
Reconstructed Nostratic to me, personally, reminds me of Finnish in some ways (in vocabulary alone; they didn’t reconstruct grammar). But then Finnish is a highly archaic language, one that has changed less over the millennia than most languages.
Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic, to take two examples, are reconstructed ancestral languages. The Nostratic theory shows how they and four other protolanguages are related and combines them into a “macrofamily”. Other macrofamilies include Sino-Caucasian and Austric. (Basque is thought to go with Sino-Caucasian.) The time depth of these relationships is several thousand years further back.
The even higher level that combines macrofamilies like Nostratic, Sino-Caucasian, Indo-Pacific, and Amerind into one family for the whole world is called “Proto-World.” It was pioneered by Vladimir Illich-Svitych and Aron Dolgopolsky. Another researcher is Vitaly Shevoroshkin. The first work on it was done in Russia in the 1960s, but not only Russians have contributed to it. The Americans Joseph Greenberg and Merritt Ruhlen have also published contributions.
As for the linguistic establishment that refuses to even examine the evidence for these hypotheses, there has always been resistance to widening a field of study. Each specialist, in American Indian languages for example, is a big frog in a small pond. He is the acclaimed master of his micro-specialty. If you group the little categories into larger ones, he will no longer be as prominent a scholar. So the establisment has a vested interest in keeping things divided up, academic turf influences the debate.
> As for the linguistic establishment that refuses to even examine
> the evidence for these hypotheses . . .
This is just paranoia. The linguistic establishment has examined the evidence, and they aren’t convinced by it. The Nostratic theory may still be right, but there isn’t enough evidence as yet to convince most linguists.
Yeah, right, like the linguist who, upon publication of Joseph Greenberg’s Language in the Americas, demanded that it be “shouted down.” His exact words.
The most prominent American linguist who is pursuing this theory is Dr. Joseph Greenberg. There’s a good overview of his beliefs on the subject in a New York Times article called “Scientist at Work: Joseph H. Greenberg; What We All Spoke When the World Was Young.” It’s only available on the web for money, though.
I guess I can offer some opinion from the linguistic community… my take is that if language faculty in humans only evolved once then the Nostratic theory makes sense, but I am highly skeptical this could ever be proven. There just isn’t enough data available.
Non-linguists should know that historically the linguistic community has been highly skeptical of any theories about language origins, because there has been a lot of nonsense bandied about on the subject owing to its ratio of lots of theory to very little solid data.
I suppose the idea of disagreeing with the Proto-World language theory could be a way to preserve status, but don’t you think a simpler explanation might be that an expert in American Indian languages might be taking issue with Dr. Greenberg’s fast and loose interpretation of American Indian languages?
I’m by no means an expert, and I don’t have any real status to preserve, but I think the biggest flaw in Dr. Greenberg’s methodology is that he doesn’t have a good grasp on just how likely “coincidences” are, particularly when you have a sound space as small as we have in human language.