Amerind languages
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Amerind is a putative higher-level language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg in his 1987 book Language in the Americas. In this book Greenberg proposed that all of the indigenous languages of the Americas belong to one of three families. According to Greenberg's hypothesis, a minority of the languages, concentrated in northern North America, belong to the previously proposed Na-Dené and Eskimo-Aleut language families. All of the remaining languages, usually considered to belong to dozens of separate unrelated language families, belong to Amerind.

The term is also occasionally used to refer (broadly) to the various indigenous languages of the Americas, without necessarily implying that they are a genetic group. To avoid ambiguity, the term Amerindian is often used instead.

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Evidence for Amerind

Amerind has found supporters among Greenberg's disciples. Merritt Ruhlen, for instance, has tried to adduce more evidence for the controversial hypothesis.1 He thus also objects to the notion that there are over 200 families among which there is no evidence of genetic affinity.2 He stresses the importance of the three-way i / u / a (i.e. masculine / feminine / neutral) ablaut in such forms as t'ina / t'una / t'ana ("son / daughter / child"), as well as of the typical general American pronominal pattern na / ma (i.e. "I / you"), first noted by Alfredo Trombetti in 1905, but attributed by some linguists to other than genetic causes.3 Ruhlen refers to the earliest beginnings of the dispute,4 quoting from Edward Sapir's personal letter to A. L. Kroeber (1918):5

“ Getting down to brass tacks, how in the Hell are you going to explain general American n- 'I' except genetically? It's disturbing, I know, but (more) non-committal conservatism is only dodging, after all, isn't it? Great simplifications are in store for us. ”

It should be stressed, however, that Greenberg and Ruhlen's views on the languages of the Americas have failed to find acceptance among the vast majority of linguists working with these languages.

Criticism

The Amerind hypothesis has not received general acceptance by historical linguists, especially by those specializing in the languages of the Americas, 6due to the fact that the basis for the proposal is mass lexical comparison. 7 This technique is generally regarded as fundamentally flawed because it is unable to distinguish chance resemblances from those due to a historical relationship among the languages and because it provides no means of distinguishing resemblances due to common descent from those due to language contact.

In addition, critics have have pointed out large numbers of errors in the citation of data, including erroneous forms, erroneous glosses, unjustified morphological segmentation, attribution to the wrong language, and citation of entirely spurious forms. 8 Those who have reviewed his data for languages in which they have expertise typically estimate that fifty percent of the data is in error. In some cases, 100% of his data is erroneous.

A further problem is that, contrary to normal scholarly practice, no source references are given for the data, which in most cases come from languages for which there is no standard, authoritative source. In addition, Greenberg does not normalize the spelling of the data, so it is impossible without knowing the source of each form to know what the notation actually represents. 9

It should be noted, however, that some of these methodological issues are addressed by Merritt Ruhlen in the latest version of the Amerind Etymological Dictionary.

Notes

  1. ^ See Greenberg & Ruhlen 2007, Ruhlen 1994a, 1994b, 1994c, 1994d, 1995a, 1995b, 1995c, 1995d, and 2004
  2. ^ See Campbell 1997
  3. ^ See Nichols 1992
  4. ^ See Ruhlen 1994e and Delbrück 1880
  5. ^ See Sapir 1918
  6. ^ See Campbell 1997, Goddard 1996, and Mithun 1999
  7. ^ See Campbell 1988, Goddard 1987, Goddard 1990, Matisoff 1990, Rankin 1992, and Ringe 2000
  8. ^ See Adelaar 1989, Berman 1992, Campbell 1988, Chafe 1987, Kimball 1992, Matisoff 1990, Poser 1992, Rankin 1992
  9. ^ See Campbell 1988, Poser 1992

References

  • Adelaar, Willem F. H. (1989). [Review of Greenberg, Language in the Americas. Lingua, 78, 249-255.
  • Berman, Howard. (1992). A comment on the Yurok and Kalapuya data in Greenberg's Language in the Americas. International Journal of American Linguistics, 58 (2), 230-233.
  • Bonnichsen, Robson; & Steele, D. Gentry (Eds.). (1994). Method and theory for investigating the peopling of the Americas. Peopling of the Americas publications. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University, Center for the Study of the First Americans. ISBN 0-912933-09-7.
  • Campbell, Lyle. (1988). [Review of Language in the Americas, Greenberg 1987]. Language, 64, 591-615.
  • Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
  • Chafe, Wallace. (1987). [Review of Greenberg 1987]. Current Anthropology, 28, 652-653.
  • DELBRÜCK, Berthold (1880), Einleitung in das Sprachstudium. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte und Methodik der vergleichenden Sprachforschung, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, OCLC: 3961260 
  • Goddard, Ives. (1987). [Review of Joseph Greenberg, Language in the Americas. Current Anthropology, 28, 656-657.
  • Goddard, Ives. (1990). [Review of Language in the Americas by Joseph H. Greenberg]. Linguistics, 28, 556-558.
  • Goddard, Ives. (1996). The classification of native languages of North America. In I. Goddard (Ed.), Languages (pp. 290-323). Handbook of North Americans Indians (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution.
  • Goddard, Ives (Ed.). (1996). Languages. Handbook of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-048774-9.
  • Goddard, Ives; & Campbell, Lyle. (1994). The history and classification of American Indian languages: What are the implications for the peopling of the Americas?. In R. Bonnichsen & D. Steele (Eds.), Method and theory for investigating the peopling of the Americas (pp. 189-207). Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University.
  • Golla, Victor. (1987). [Review of Joseph H. Greenberg: Language in the Americas. Current Anthropology, 28, 657-659.
  • Golla, Victor. (1988). [Review of Language in the Americas, by Joseph Greenberg]. American Anthropologist, 90, 434-435.
  • Greenberg, Joseph H. (1960). General classification of Central and South American languages. In A. Wallace (Ed.), Men and cultures: Fifth international congress of anthropological and ethnological sciences (1956) (pp. 791-794). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). Language in the Americas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
  • Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). Language in the Americas: Author's précis. Current Anthropology, 28, 647-652.
  • Greenberg, Joseph H. (1989). Classification of American Indian languages: A reply to Campbell. Language, 65, 107-114.
  • Greenberg, Joseph H. (1996). In defense of Amerind. International Journal of American Linguistics, 62, 131-164.
  • GREENBERG, Joseph H.; RUHLEN, Merritt (2007), An Amerind Etymological Dictionary, Corvallis, Oregon: Department of Anthropological Sciences, Stanford University 
  • Kimball, Geoffrey. (1992). A critique of Muskogean, 'Gulf,' and Yukian materials in Language in the Americas. International Journal of American Linguistics, 58, 447-501.
  • Matisoff, James. (1990). On megalo-comparison: A discussion note. Language, 66, 106-120.
  • Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
  • NICHOLS, Johanna (1992), Linguistic diversity in space and time, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226580563 
  • Poser, William J. (1992). The Salinan and Yurumanguí data in Language in the Americas. International Journal of American Linguistics, 58 (2), 202-229. PDF
  • Rankin, Robert. (1992). [Review of Language in the Americas by J. H. Greenberg]. International Journal of American Linguistics, 58 (3), 324-351.
  • Ringe, Don (2000). Some relevant facts about historical linguistics. In: Renfrew, Colin (Ed.), America Past, America Present: Genes and Languages in the Americas and Beyond (pp. 139-62). Cambridge, UK: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
  • RUHLEN, Merritt (1994), "Evolution of Language", in MACEY, Sam, Encyclopedia of Time, New York: Garland Science, ISBN 0815306156 
  • RUHLEN, Merritt (1994), "Linguistic Evidence for the Peopling of the Americas", in BONNICHSEN, Robson; STEELE, D. Gentry, Method and Theory for Investigating the Peopling of the Americas, Corvallis, Oregon: Center for the Study of the First Americans, Oregon State University, pp. 177–188, ISBN 0912933097 
  • RUHLEN, Merritt (November 1994), "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose", Mother Tongue Newsletter (Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory (ASLIP)) (23): 72-73, OCLC: 35315526 
  • RUHLEN, Merritt (1994), "Review of 'Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time' By Johanna NICHOLS", Anthropos 89: 640–641, ISSN: 0257-9774 
  • RUHLEN, Merritt (1994), On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy, Stanford: Stanford University Press, ISBN 0804723214 
  • RUHLEN, Merritt (March 1995), "A Note on Amerind Pronouns", Mother Tongue Newsletter (Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory (ASLIP)) (24): 60–61, OCLC: 35315526 
  • RUHLEN, Merritt (March 1995), "Proto-Amerind *QETS’ 'Left (Hand)'", Mother Tongue Newsletter (Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory (ASLIP)) (24): 69–70, OCLC: 35315526 
  • RUHLEN, Merritt (1995), "On the Origin of the Amerind Pronominal Pattern", in Chen, Matthew Y.; Tzeng, Ovid J. L., In Honor of William S-Y. Wang, Taipei: Pyramid Press, pp. 405–407, ISBN 957926855X 
  • RUHLEN, Merritt (January 1995), "Proto-Amerind Numerals", Anthropological Science (Tokyo: Anthropological Society of Nippon) 103 (3): 209–225, ISSN: 1348-8570 

See also

External links
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