Sprung from Some Common Source: Investigations into the Prehistory of Languages

by Sydney Lamb (Editor), Sydney Lamb (Editor)

With its range focused on Indo-European and extending across Eurasia and into the Americas, this collection of seventeen studies investigates various aspects of the long-range comparison and classification of Indo-European and other major language groups. Some of them confront the controversial question of whether Indo-European and certain other language families had, extending the celebrated phrase of Sir William Jones in 1786, 'sprung from some common source'. With comparative linguistics of recent decades in danger of stifling from an excess of caution, the quest for the answer to that question has now been broadened to attempt to find a deeper common source than Proto-Indo-European. This volume surveys the progress of the genetic classification of languages over the years, records recent developments, and points to abundant opportunities for future research. The contributors - some of the world's leading investigators of the genetic classification of languages - have adopted a broad outlook, looking beyond comparative Indo-European linguistics in two

428 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1991

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

SPRUNG FROM SOME COMMON SOURCE: Investigations into the Prehistory of Languages is a collection of papers presented at the Symposium on Genetic Classification of Languages held in 1986 at Rice University. This year was the two-hundredth anniversary of Sir William Jones' address to the Asiatic Society that is often taken as the beginning of comparative Indo-European linguistics. A couple of of the papers here are very informative and well worth reading. Unfortunately, however, the rest is "voodoo linguistics."

The first paper in the collection is Winfred Lehmann's "The Process of Linguistics", in which the famed Indo-Europeanist notes how we have gone from the vague recognition of common origin, Jones' contribution, to a rigorous setting-out of sound-laws. The Neogrammarians, and forebears like Grimm, really started the science of linguistics as we understand it now. It's a short but nonetheless thought-provoking piece. Jaan Puhvel contributes "Whence the Hittite, Whither the Jonesian Vision", an enigmatically titled piece which is actually a plea for greater consideration of Hittite. Among other things, Puhvel encourages Indo-Europeanists to gain enough proficiency in Hittite to use primary materials, instead of always relying on predigested editions.

Things just go downhill from here. Saul Levin contributes a paper in which he explores certain similitaries between Semitic and IE. The presence of wanderworte is intriguing, but some of his arguments don't hold water. For example, he asserts that (non-phonemic) initial glottal stop in Germanic is a special sign of Semitic influence. Granted, the initial glottal stop was a feature of many Proto-Indo-European words if we assume a CVC structure, and Germanic has preserved this when it was lost elsewhere. Levin himself admirably pointed this out in a 1979 paper published in General Linguistics. Yet, there's no reason to assume a close relationship between Proto-Semitic and Proto-Indo-European. Many languages have the glottal stop, it would be is like saying English and Mari are close because they both have voiced dental fricatives. I think Levin himself realizes this, because he admittedly chooses to ignore the existence of the Afro-Asiatic family, which would undercut his argument. That's poor scholarship.

The editors really embarrass themselves by including papers from Joseph Greenberg and Merritt Ruhlen. Greenberg, a specialist in Native American languages at best, audaciously tries to cram Proto-Indo-European into an "Eurasiatic" macrofamily with no better argument than mass comparison. Ruhlen's paper is entitled "The Amerind Phylum and the Prehistory of the New World" and the less said about it the better. In fact, now may be a good time to repeat Larry Trask: "Ruhlen is not recognized by anybody in linguistics as a member of the profession. Every single linguist who is acquainted with his work regards him as a crackpot and a charlatan."

Most of the collection consists of material taking Greenberg and Ruhlen's "insights" for granted. Shevoroshkin and Ramer's paper "Recent Work on the Remote Relations of Languages" even takes Illich-Svitych as a starting point. The worst paper here, though, is Marija Gimbutas' "Deities and Symbols of Old Europe". As is typical of late Gimbutas, we find the assertion that Europe before the arrival of Indo-Europeans was matriarchal, peaceful, and idyllic. But what really makes this paper objectionable is that there is no linguistic content. None whatsoever. Gimbutas never talks about substrates or proto-forms, all very fascinating issues worthy of treatment. Instead, it's a collection of various types of statuary dating from before 3000 B.C.

If you have access to this volume in your university library, check out the Lehmann and Puhvel papers, which are quite good. But all in all, this is a disappointing collection.