Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2544560 in Books
• Published on: 1994-07-31
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 356 pages

Synopsis
This book presents a series of illuminating studies which conclusively demonstrates that the prevailing conception of historical linguistics is deeply flawed. Most linguists today believe that there is no good evidence that the Indo-European family of languages is related to any other language family, or even any other language. In like manner, the New World is deemed to contain hundreds of language families, among which there are no apparent links. Furthermore, it is claimed, there are no known connections between the languages of the Old World and those of the Americas. And finally, the strongest belief of all is that there is no trace of genetic affinity nor could there be among the world s language families. The author argues that all of these firmly entrenched and vigorously defended beliefs are false, that they are myths propagated by a small group of scholars who have failed to understand the true basis of genetic affinity.

Twentieth-century Indo-Europeanists (though not their nineteenth-century forebears) have confused the issue of genetic affinity, which derives from classification, with such traditional concerns of historical linguistics as reconstruction and sound correspondences. Once it is recognized that taxonomy, or classification, must precede these traditional concerns, the apparent conflict between the traditional view and that of Joseph Greenberg and his followers is seen to be illusory. And finally, a comparison of all the world s languages in this new perspective leaves little doubt that all extant human languages share a common origin.

Customer Reviews

THE MOTHER TONGUE
In this pioneering work, the author presents compelling evidence for genetic affinity amongst, and one common origin for all the language families of the world. The first chapter provides an introduction to the methods and results of genetic linguistics, serving as a general background for the following thirteen studies. Here the author also discusses the biological taxonomy of modern humans, based on discoveries by human geneticists that the biological classification of the human species closely parallels the linguistic classifications postulated by long-range comparison. Recent advances in this field (human genome project) will no doubt provide further confirmation of these correspondences. The essays include, inter alia, Khoisan, Na-Dene and Amerind Etymologies, Proto-Yeniseian reconstructions with external comparisons (with Sergei A. Starostin), Linguistic Origins of Native Americans, Semantic Index to Greenberg's Amerind Etymologies, First and Second Person Pronouns in the World's Languages. By examining the Amerind etymology [MALIQ'A = swallow, throat] in detail, the author clearly demonstrates the common origin of a single root in language families throughout the world, a root which in Eurasian/Nostratic is the word for nursing, suckling and the female breast. In Indo-European the meaning shifted frm "nursing" to "milking" and in e.g. the Germanic languages, ultimately to the product "milk" itself. I found chapter 14: Global Etymologies (co-author John D. Bengtson) the most fascinating. Here 27 global etymologies are extensively and soundly documented in the form of a phonetic/semantic gloss followed by examples from many different languages families. For example [KANO = arm] is found in Khoisan, Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Indo-European, Uralic, Dravidian, Caucasian, Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic, Amerind and many more. The evidence for monogenesis is overwhelming and I hope that this book accelerates research towards the reconstruction of the mother tongue, Proto-Human. For those who are fascinated by the first language, I recommend the authors Allan R. Bomhard, John C. Kerns Aaron Dolgopolsky, Joseph H. Greenberg, Vitaly Shevoroshkin, John Bengtson.