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Nostratic languages
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The Nostratic languages constitute a proposed language family that includes many of the indigenous language families of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America.
The hypothetical ancestral language of the Nostratic family is called Proto-Nostratic, following standard linguistic practice. Proto-Nostratic would necessarily have been spoken at an earlier time than the language families descended from it, which would place it toward the end of the Paleolithic period.
Nostratic is sometimes called a macrofamily or a superfamily, but these terms have no scientific signification: they simply denote a language family that groups two or more other language families and is not (or not yet) generally accepted by those linguists who have concerned themselves with the question.
In contrast to some other macrofamilies, most versions of the Nostratic hypothesis rely upon an application of the comparative method, a linguistic method involving systematic sound-and-meaning correspondences between the constituent families as well as systematic correspondences in their grammar.
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Encyclopedia
The Nostratic languages constitute a proposed language family that includes many of the indigenous language families of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America.
The hypothetical ancestral language of the Nostratic family is called Proto-Nostratic, following standard linguistic practice. Proto-Nostratic would necessarily have been spoken at an earlier time than the language families descended from it, which would place it toward the end of the Paleolithic period.
Nostratic is sometimes called a macrofamily or a superfamily, but these terms have no scientific signification: they simply denote a language family that groups two or more other language families and is not (or not yet) generally accepted by those linguists who have concerned themselves with the question.
In contrast to some other macrofamilies, most versions of the Nostratic hypothesis rely upon an application of the comparative method, a linguistic method involving systematic sound-and-meaning correspondences between the constituent families as well as systematic correspondences in their grammar. Notwithstanding this feature, the Nostratic hypothesis is very controversial.
The Nostratic hypothesis has varying degrees of acceptance amongst linguists worldwide, depending in part on local academic traditions. In Russia, it is endorsed by a substantial minority of linguists working in relevant areas, e.g. Vladimir Dybo, but does not constitute a generally accepted theory. In the English-speaking world, it is strongly condemned by a minority of linguists, e.g. Lyle Campbell; others take an agnostic view, e.g. Philip Baldi; a few support similar but not identical classifications, e.g. Merritt Ruhlen; declared supporters of the Nostratic hypothesis, e.g. Allan Bomhard, are a small minority at the present time (2008).
Background: From Indo-European to Nostratic
The concept of Nostratic can be best understood in the context of the discovery of the Indo-European family of languages and the methods developed in its investigation. When Sir William Jones first suggested the Indo-European hypothesis in 1786, he backed up his idea with a systematic examination of what could be termed "phono-semantic sets" — words which, in different languages, have both similar sounds and similar meanings. Jones essentially argued that too many of these sets occurred for mere coincidence to explain their existence, laying particular emphasis on the resemblance between morphological patterns: declensions and conjugations. He proposed that the languages in question must have stemmed from a single language at some time in the past, and that they had diverged from one another due to geographical separation and the passage of time. The idea of a "root language" thus took hold, a concept to which the evolution of the Romance languages from Latin offered itself as a clear parallel.
A second major concept to keep in mind involves the argument, starting with Jacob Grimm, that languages do not evolve in a haphazard manner, but rather according to certain rules. Using these rules, one could theoretically run the evolutionary process backwards and reconstruct the root language. Comparative linguists have done this, producing parts of the hypothetical language, named Proto-Indo-European.
A third concept suggests that, by examining the words in the Proto-Indo-European language, one can determine some things about the time and place of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Words for objects and concepts that were not familiar to the speakers of Proto-Indo-European would receive essentially random names after the time when the languages began to split; only things they knew would produce phono-semantic sets in the successor languages. Proto-Indo-European features many words relating to animal husbandry, agriculture, and plains-like landscapes. From this, scholars have plausibly argued that Proto-Indo-European existed as a living language some time between 6000 BC and 4000 BC in the plains to the north of the Black Sea. (As a measure of the difficulty of this task, some argue that the reconstructed vocabulary of Proto-Indo-European, together with other known information about migrations, indicates a northern Anatolian landscape, although this area notably lacks flat ground.)
Altogether, the Indo-European hypothesis has proven wildly successful, and naturally linguists have tried to apply the same general theory to a wide variety of other languages. Many languages have been shown to be related to other languages, forming large families similar to Indo-European. On the face of it, it is logical that the family tree could converge further, and that some or all language families could be related to one another.
Origin of the Nostratic hypothesis
The last quarter of the 19th century saw various linguists putting forward proposals linking the Indo-European languages to other language families, such as Finno-Ugric and Altaic.
These proposals were taken much farther in 1903 when Holger Pedersen, a major Danish linguist, proposed "Nostratic", a common ancestor for the Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Samoyed, Turkish, Mongolian, Manchu, Yukaghir, Eskimo, Semitic, and Hamitic languages, with the door left open to the eventual inclusion of others.
The name Nostratic derives from the Latin word nostras, meaning 'our fellow-countryman' (plural: nostrates). Some linguists who broadly accept the concept have criticised the name as reflecting the ethnocentrism frequent among Europeans at the time. Even so, it arguably transcends these associations. Proposed alternative names such as Mitian, formed from the characteristic Nostratic first- and second-person pronouns mi 'I' and ti 'you', have not attained the same currency.
An early supporter was the French linguist Albert Cuny — better known for his role in the development of the laryngeal theory — who published his Recherches sur le vocalisme, le consonantisme et la formation des racines en « nostratique », ancêtre de l'indo-européen et du chamito-sémitique ('Researches on the Vocalism, Consonantism, and Formation of Roots in "Nostratic", Ancestor of Indo-European and Hamito-Semitic') in 1943. Although Cuny enjoyed a high reputation as a linguist, the work was coldly received.
While Pedersen's Nostratic hypothesis did not make much headway in the West, it became quite popular in what was then the Soviet Union. Working independently at first, Vladislav Illich-Svitych and Aharon Dolgopolsky elaborated the first version of the contemporary form of the hypothesis during the 1960s. They expanded it to include additional language families. Illich-Svitych also prepared the first dictionary of the hypothetical language.
Methodology
A principal source for the items in Illich-Svitych’s dictionary was the earlier work of Alfredo Trombetti (1866–1929), an Italian linguist who had developed a classification scheme for all the world’s languages, widely reviled at the time and subsequently ignored by almost all linguists. In Trombetti’s time, a widely held view on classifying languages was that similarity in inflections is the surest proof of genetic relationship. In the interim, the view had taken hold that the comparative method — previously used as a means of studying languages already known to be related and without any thought of classification — is the most effective means to establish genetic relationship, eventually hardening into the conviction that it is the only legitimate means to do so. This view was basic to the outlook of the new Nostraticists. Although Illich-Svitych adopted many of Trombetti’s etymologies, he sought to validate them by a systematic comparison of the sound systems of the languages concerned. Likewise, Nostraticsts refused (and continue to refuse) to include in their schema language families for which no proto-language has yet been reconstructed. This approach was criticized by Joseph Greenberg on the ground that genetic classification is necessarily prior to linguistic reconstruction but this criticism, unlike some of Greenberg’s (see next section), has so far had no effect on Nostraticist theory and practice. Nostratic studies thus remain within the mainstream of contemporary linguistics from a methodological point of view; it is rather the scope with which the comparative method is applied by Nostraticists that raises eyebrows.
Membership
The language families proposed for inclusion in Nostratic vary, but all Nostraticists agree on a common core of language families, with differences of opinion appearing over the inclusion of additional families.
The three groups universally accepted among Nostraticists are Indo-European, Uralic, and Altaic. (The validity of the Altaic family is currently in dispute but is accepted by all Nostraticists.) Nearly all also include the Dravidian and Kartvelian language families in Nostratic.
Following Pedersen, Illich-Svitych, and Dolgopolsky, most advocates of the theory have included Afro-Asiatic, though criticisms by Joseph Greenberg and others from the late 1980s onward suggested a reassessment of this position.
A fairly representative grouping, arranged in rough geographical order (and probable order of phylogenetic branching), would include:
The Sumerian and Etruscan languages, usually regarded as language isolates, are thought by some to be Nostratic languages as well. Others, however, consider one or both to be members of another macrofamily called Dené-Caucasian.
Another notional isolate, the Elamite language, also figures in a number of Nostratic classifications. It is frequently grouped with Dravidian as Elamo-Dravidian, but may well be an independent branch.
In 1987 Joseph Greenberg proposed a similar macrofamily which he called Eurasiatic. It included the same "Euraltaic" core (Indo-European, Uralic, and Altaic), but excluded some of the above-listed families, most notably Afro-Asiatic. At about this time Russian Nostraticists, notably Sergei Starostin, constructed a revised version of Nostratic which was slightly broader than Greenberg's grouping but which similarly left out Afro-Asiatic.
Recently, however, a consensus has been emerging among proponents of the Nostratic hypothesis. Greenberg in fact basically agreed with the Nostratic concept, though he stressed a deep internal division between its northern 'tier' (his Eurasiatic) and a southern 'tier' (principally Afro-Asiatic and Dravidian). The American Nostraticist Allan Bomhard considers Eurasiatic a branch of Nostratic alongside other branches: Afro-Asiatic, Elamo-Dravidian, and Kartvelian. Similarly, Georgiy Starostin (2002) arrives at a tripartite overall grouping: he considers Afro-Asiatic, Nostratic and Elamite to be roughly equidistant and more closely related to each other than to anything else.. Sergei Starostin's school has now re-included Afro-Asiatic in a broadly defined Nostratic, while reserving the term Eurasiatic to designate the narrower subgrouping which comprises the rest of the macrofamily. Recent proposals thus differ mainly on the precise placement of Dravidian and Kartvelian.
(Part of the confusion stems from the definition of Nostratic: "those families that are related to Indo-European" [Pedersen as cited by Ruhlen, 2001]. Thus, which languages are Nostratic depends on which are considered to be discoverably related to Indo-European, and this is where opinions differ.)
According to Greenberg, Eurasiatic and Amerind form a genetic node, being more closely related to each other than either is to "the other families of the Old World". This would place most of the Native American languages within Nostratic, an unusual hypothesis from the Nostraticist point of view.
It is too early to evaluate the emerging hypotheses of remoter affiliations in which Nostratic itself is incorporated into an even broader linguistic 'mega-phylum', sometimes called Borean, which would also include at least the Dené-Caucasian and perhaps the Amerind and Austric superfamilies.
Nostratic Urheimat
Allan Bomhard and Colin Renfrew are in broad agreement with the earlier conclusions of Illich-Svitych and Dolgopolsky in seeking the Nostratic Urheimat (original homeland) within the Mesolithic (or Epipaleolithic) Middle East, the stage which directly preceded the Neolithic and was transitional to it. Looking at the cultural assemblages of this period, two sequences in particular stand out as possible archeological correlates of the earliest Nostratians or their immediate precursors.
The first of these is focused on Palestine. The Kebaran culture of Palestine (18,000–10,500 BCE) not only introduced the microlithic assemblage into the region, it also has African affinity, specifically with the Ouchtata retouch technique associated with the microlithic Halfan culture of Egypt (24,000–17,000 BCE). The Kebarans in their turn were directly ancestral to the succeeding Natufian culture of Palestine and the Levant (10,500–8500 BCE), which has enormous significance for prehistorians as the clearest evidence of hunters and gatherers in actual transition to Neolithic food production. Both cultures extended their influence outside the region into southern Anatolia. For example, in Cilicia the Belbasi culture (13,000–10,000 BCE) shows Kebaran influence, while the Beldibi culture (10,000–8500 BCE) shows clear Natufian influence.
The second possibility as a culture associated with the Nostratic family is the Zarzian (12,400–8500 BCE) culture of the Zagros mountains, stretching northwards into Kobistan in the Caucasus and eastwards into Iran. In western Iran, the M’lefatian culture (10,500–9000 BCE) was ancestral to the assemblages of Ali Tappah (9000–5000 BCE) and Jeitun (6000–4000 BCE). Still further east, the Hissar culture has been seen as the Mesolithic precursor to the Keltiminar culture (5500–3500 BCE) of the Kyrgyz steppe.
To have spread so widely suggests these people possessed some cultural advantages. It has been proposed that the broad spectrum revolution of Kent Flannery (1969), associated with microliths, the use of the bow and arrow, and the domestication of the dog, all of which are associated with these cultures, may have been the cultural "motor" that led to their expansion. Certainly cultures which appeared at Franchthi cave in the Aegean and Lipinski Vir in the Balkans, and the Murzak-Koba (9100–8000 BCE) and Grebenki (8500–7000 BCE) cultures of the Ukrainian steppe, all displayed these adaptations.
Recent developments
The chief events in Nostratic studies in 2008 were the posting online of the latest version of Dolgopolsky's Nostratic Dictionary and the publication of Allan Bomhard's latest comprehensive treatment of the subject, Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic, in 2 volumes.
Also significant was Bomhard's partly critical review of Dolgopolsky's dictionary, in which he argued that only those Nostratic etymologies that are strongest should be included, in contrast to Dolgopolsky's more expansive approach, which includes many etymologies that are possible but not secure.
2008 also saw the opening of a website, Nostratica, devoted to providing important texts in Nostratic studies online.
Comparative grammar of Nostratic
Reconstructed phonology
The phonemes tabulated below are commonly reconstructed for the Proto-Nostratic language (Kaiser and Shevoroshkin 1988). Allan Bomhard (1994), who relies more heavily on Indo-European and less on the other Nostratic branches than the "Moscow School", reconstructs a different vowel system, with three pairs of vowels connected by ablaut: .
Consonants
Vowels
Sound correspondences
The following table is compiled from data given by Kaiser and Shevoroshkin (1988) and Starostin . Because linguists working on Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic, and Proto-Dravidian do not usually use the IPA, the transcriptions used in those fields are also given where the letters differ from the IPA symbols. The IPA symbols are between slashes because this is a phonemic transcription. The exact values of the phoneme "" in Proto-Afro-Asiatic and Proto-Dravidian are unknown. "0" indicates disappearance without a trace. Hyphens indicate different developments at the beginning and in the interior of words; no consonants ever occurred at the ends of word roots. (Starostin's list of affricate and fricative correspondences does not mention Afro-Asiatic or Dravidian, and Kaiser and Shevoroshkin don't mention these sounds much; hence the holes in the table.)
Note that, due to lack of research, there are at present several different mutually incompatible reconstructions of Proto-Afro-Asiatic (see for two recent ones). The one used here has been said to be based too strongly on Proto-Semitic (Yakubovich 1998 ).
Similarly, the paper by Kaiser and Shevoroshkin is much older than the newest Altaic Etymological Dictionary (2003; see Altaic languages article) and therefore assumes a somewhat different phonological system for Proto-Altaic.
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| Vowels |
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| Proto-Nostratic | Proto-Indo-European | Proto-Uralic | Proto-Altaic | Proto-Kartvelian | Proto-Dravidian | Proto-Afro-Asiatic |
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(To be completed and updated further.)
Morphological correspondences
Because grammar is less easily borrowed than words, grammar is usually considered stronger evidence for language relationships than vocabulary. The following correspondences (slightly modified to account for the reconstruction of Proto-Altaic by Starostin et al. [2003]) have been suggested by Kaiser and Shevoroshkin (1988). /N/ could be any nasal consonant. /V/ could be any vowel. (The above cautionary notes on Afro-Asiatic and Dravidian apply.)
| Proto-Nostratic | Proto-Indo-European | Proto-Uralic | Proto-Altaic | Proto-Kartvelian | Proto-Dravidian | Proto-Afro-Asiatic |
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| Noun affixes |
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| /na/ "originally a locative particle" | /en/ 'in' | -/na/ | -/na/ | /nu/, /n/ | | -/n/ |
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| /Na/ or /Næ/ "animate plural" | | -/NV/² | | -/(e)n/ | | |
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| | -/t/ | | -/t/- | | -/æt/ |
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| -/k/- | | -/ka/ | | | |
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| Verb affixes |
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| /s(V)/ "causative-desiderative" | -/se/- | | | -/su/, -/sa/ | | |
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| | | -/t/- | | -/t/- | /tV/- |
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| Particles |
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| /mæ/ "prohibitive" | | | | | /ma/- | /m(j)/ |
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| | -/ka/, -kä -/kæ/ | -/ka/ | /kwe/ | | /k(w)/ |
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In addition, Kaiser and Shevoroshkin write the following about Proto-Nostratic grammar (two asterisks are used for reconstructions based on reconstructions; citation format changed):
The verb stood at the end of the sentence (SV and SOV type). The 1st p[er]s[on] was formed by adding the 1st ps. pronoun **mi to the verb; similarly, the 2nd ps. was formed by adding **ti. There were no endings for the 3rd ps. present [or at least none can be reconstructed], while the 3rd ps. preterit ending was **-di (Illich-Svitych 1971, pp. 218–19). Verbs could be active and passive, causative, desiderative, and reflective; and there were special markers for most of these categories. Nouns could be animate or inanimate, and plural markers differed for each category. There were subject and object markers, locative and lative enclitic particles, etc. Pronouns distinguished direct and oblique forms, animate and inanimate categories, notions of the type 'near':'far', inclusive:exclusive […], etc. Apparently there were no prefixes. Nostratic words were either equal to roots or built by adding endings or suffixes. There are some cases of word composition...
Proposed cognates
The following are taken from Kaiser and Shevoroshkin (1988) and Bengtson (1998) and transcribed into the IPA. (The same cautionary notes apply as for the sound correspondences table.)
Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns are seldom borrowed between languages. Therefore the many correspondences between Nostratic pronouns are rather strong evidence for the existence of a Proto-Nostratic language. The difficulty of finding Afro-Asiatic cognates is, however, taken by some as evidence that Nostratic has two or three branches, Afro-Asiatic and Eurasiatic (and possibly Dravidian), and that most or all of the pronouns in the following table can only be traced to Proto-Eurasiatic.
Nivkh is a living (if moribund) language with an orthography, which is given here. /V/ means that it is not clear which vowel should be reconstructed.
For space reasons, Etruscan is not included, but the fact that it had /mi/ 'I' and /mini/ 'me' seems to fit the pattern reconstructed for Proto-Nostratic ideally, leading some to argue that the Aegean or Tyrsenian languages were yet another Nostratic branch.
There is no reconstruction of Proto-Eskimo-Aleut, although the existence of the Eskimo-Aleut family is generally accepted.
| Proto-
Nostratic | Proto-
Indo-
European | Proto-
Uralic | Proto-
Altaic | Proto-
Kartvelian | Proto-
Dravidian | Proto-
Yukaghir | Nivkh | Proto-
Chukotko-
Kamchatkan | Proto-
Eskimo | Proto-
Afro-
Asiatic |
|---|
'I'
(nominative) | | | | | | | | | | | |
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'me' ~ 'mine'
(oblique cases) | | | | | | | | | | | |
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'thou'
(nominative) | | | | | | | | | | | |
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| 'thee' (oblique) | | | | | | | | | | | |
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| 'we' (inclusive) | | | | (oblique) 'we' | | | 'we' | | 'we' | | |
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| 'we' (exclusive) | | | | | | | | | | | |
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| 'you' (plural) | | | | | | | | | | | |
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Other words
Below are selected reconstructed etymologies from Kaiser and Shevoroshkin (1988) and Bengtson (1998). Reconstructed ( = unattested) forms are marked with an asterisk. /V/ means that it is not clear which vowel should be reconstructed. Likewise, /E/ could have been any front vowel and /N/ any nasal consonant. Only the consonants are given of Proto-Afro-Asiatic roots (see above).
- Proto-Nostratic * or * 'who'
- Proto-Indo-European * 'who', (with suffix -i-) 'what'. Ancestors of the English wh- words.
- Proto-Afro-Asiatic * and 'who'. The change from ejective to plain consonants in Proto-Afro-Asiatic is apparently regular in grammatical words (Kaiser and Shevoroshkin 1988; see also * instead of * above).
- Proto-Altaic ?*. The presence of /a/ instead of /o/ is unexplained, but Kaiser and Shevoroshkin (1988) regard this alternation as common among Nostratic languages.
- Proto-Uralic * 'who'
- "Yukaghir" (Northern, Southern, or both?) ??? 'who'
- Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan *, * 'who'
- Proto-Eskimo-Aleut * 'who'
- Proto-Nostratic *, *, or * 'heart ~ chest' (Kaiser and Shevoroshkin [1988]; the Proto-Eskimo form given by Bengtson [1998] may indicate that the vowel was or not).
- Proto-Indo-European * 'heart'. The occurrence of * instead of * is regular: voiceless and aspirated consonants never occur together in the same Proto-Indo-European root.
- Afro-Asiatic: Proto-Chadic * 'chest'
- Proto-Kartvelian * (/m/ being a prefix) 'chest ~ breast'
- Proto-Eskimo * 'heart ~ breast'. The presence of /q/ instead of /k/ is not clear.
- Proto-Nostratic * 'ear ~ hear'
- Proto-Indo-European * 'hear'. Ancestor of English listen, loud.
- Proto-Afro-Asiatic * 'hear'
- Proto-Kartvelian * 'ear'
- Proto-Altaic * 'ear'
- Proto-Uralic * (long vowel from fusion of ) 'hear'
- Proto-Dravidian * 'hear'. (Must figure out if it's /g/- instead.)
- Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan *, possibly from earlier 'ear'
- Proto-Nostratic * 'stone'
- Afro-Asiatic: Proto-Chadic * 'stone'
- Proto-Kartvelian * 'stone'
- Proto-Uralic * 'stone'
- Proto-Dravidian * 'stone'
- Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan * 'stone'; Kamchadal ???? , ??? 'stone'
- Proto-Eskimo-Aleut * 'stone'
- Proto-Nostratic * 'water'
- Proto-Indo-European * 'water ~ wet'
- Altaic: Proto-Tungusic * 'water'
- Proto-Uralic * 'water'
- Proto-Dravidian * 'wet'
- Proto-Nostratic * 'storm'
- Proto-Indo-European * 'storm'
- Proto-Afro-Asiatic * 'storm'
- Proto-Altaic * 'storm'
- Proto-Uralic * 'snow storm ~ smoke' (-/k/- unexplained)
- Proto-Nostratic * 'front side'
- Proto-Indo-European * 'front side'
- Proto-Afro-Asiatic * 'front side'; the change from * to * is apparently regular
- Proto-Altaic * 'front side'
- Proto-Nostratic * 'eat'
- Proto-Indo-European * 'satiated'
- Proto-Afro-Asiatic * 'be fed' ~ 'be abundant'
- Proto-Kartvelian * 'become sated'
- Proto-Altaic * 'eat'
- Proto-Uralic * or * 'eat'
- Proto-Nostratic * 'grasp'
- Proto-Indo-European * 'grasp'
- Proto-Dravidian * 'grasp'
- Proto-Nostratic * 'little'
- Proto-Afro-Asiatic * 'little'
- Proto-Kartvelian * 'little'
- Proto-Dravidian * 'little'. (Must figure out if plosives correct.)
Criticisms of the Nostratic theory
Certain critiques have pointed out that the data from individual, established language families that is cited in Nostratic comparisons often involves a high degree of errors; Campbell (1998) demonstrates this for Uralic data. Defenders of the Nostratic theory argue that were this to be true: it would remain that in classifying languages genetically, positives count for vastly more than negatives (Ruhlen 1994). The reason for this is that, above a certain threshold, resemblances in sound/meaning correspondences are highly improbable mathematically.
The technique of comparing grammatical structures (as opposed to words) has suggested to some that the Nostratic candidates lack interrelatedness. However, Pedersen's original Nostratic proposal synthesized earlier macrofamilies, some of which involved extensive comparison of inflections, e.g. Indo-Uralic. It is true the Russian Nostraticists and Bomhard initially emphasized lexical comparisons. Bomhard recognized the necessity to explore morphological comparisons and has since published extensive work in this area (see especially Bomhard 2008:1.273–386). According to him the breakthrough came with the publication of the first volume of Joseph Greenberg's Eurasiatic work, which provided a massive list of possible morphemic correspondences that has proved fruitful to explore. Other important contributions on Nostratic morphology have been published by John C. Kerns and Vladimir Dybo.
Critics argue that were one to collect all the words from the various known Indo-European languages and dialects which have at least one of any 4 meanings, one could easily form a list that would cover any conceivable combination of two consonants and a vowel (of which there are only about 20*20*5=2000). Nostraticists respond that they do not compare isolated lexical items but reconstructed proto-languages. To include a word for a proto-language it must be found in a number of languages and the forms must be relatable by regular sound changes. In addition, many languages have restrictions on root structure, reducing the number of possible root-forms far below its mathematical maximum. These languages include, among others, Indo-European, Uralic, and Altaic — all the core languages of the Nostratic hypothesis. To understand how the root structures of one language relate to those of another has long been a focus of Nostratic studies.
Critics argue that Nostratic comparisons show excessive semantic latitude and that Nostraticists should only compare words whose meanings are identical or close to identical. Nostraticists respond that the degree of semantic latitude found in Nostratic studies is the same as in other branches of comparative-historical linguistics and that this can be illustrated by comparing a typical Nostratic etymology and a typical Indo-European etymology. Setting the bar too high in this area, they argue, is as unrealistic as setting it too low.
Nostratic poetry
The late Vladislav Illich-Svitych, a notable Russian Nostraticist, decided to create using his version of Proto-Nostratic. (Compare Schleicher's fable for similar attempts with several different reconstructions of Proto-Indo-European.) The well-known poem is as follows:
| Nostratic (Illich-Svitych's spelling) | Nostratic (IPA) | Russian | English | | elä weei aun kähla | | ???? – ??? ???? ????? ???? ???????, | Language is a ford through the river of time, | | a?ai palh- na wetä | | ?? ????? ??? ? ?????? ???????; | it leads us to the dwelling of those gone before; | | sa da a-eja älä | | ?? ???? ?? ?????? ????? ???, | but he cannot arrive there, | | ja-o pele uba wete | | ??? ?????? ???????? ????. | who fears deep water. |
The value of or is uncertain — it could be or . H could similarly be at least /h/ or /h/. V or is an uncertain vowel.
See also
External links
- – New York Times article on Nostratic (June 27, 1995)
- by John Bengtson, in Mother Tongue Newsletter 31 (1998), pages 33-38
- – photograph, Nostratic poem (2002)
- on StarLing database (last modified 2006)
Nostratic Dictionary by Aharon Dolgopolsky (2006)
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