Hard Words

(Review)
(April, 1991) by Philip E. Ross (Scientific American) , staff writer

What's in a word? f it's ti!, the answer is contro"ersy. #in$%ists are at each other's throats o"er attempts to trace lan$%a$e to ancient roots. Some radicals belie"e that they can discern echoes of words not spo!en for millennia and that it is possible to relate all lan$%a$es to a sin$le ton$%e spo!en by the first h%mans. &onser"ati"es thin! the radicals bar! %p the wron$ tree. What is indeed %ni'%e abo%t this article is the fact that lan$%a$e is bein$ traced from the be$innin$ of times. (or me, it ma!es sense that all the lan$%a$es of the world m%st ha"e spran$ from a common one and the )Eve Hypothesis*

form%lated by Allan &. Wilson, +ar! Stone!in$ and Rebecca #. &ann co%ld in fact ma!e %s %nderstand that if the entire h%man pop%lation was traced %p to a sin$le woman in Africa (perhaps ,-.,... years a$o) why wo%ldn/t the monogenesis of language be fo%nd0 1he most interestin$ and intri$%in$ fact is that lan$%a$e researchers were %nable to come to an a$reement abo%t the roots of lan$%a$es. 1his raises a '%estion, beca%se Eric P. Hamp, Aaron B. Dolgopolsky and Joseph H. Greenberg ha"e different ways of approachin$ this s%b2ect, either reconstr%ctin$ the history of the ndo3E%ropean lan$%a$es, either proposin$ the Nostratic superfamily, or $ro%pin$ whole families of lan$%a$es. n other words, it was "ery hard and painsta!in$ to search for a simple answer at a simple '%estion4 hat is the root of language! thin! that the ca%se wo%ld be the fact that lin$%ists had their own way of attac!in$ this iss%e. 5%t it wasn/t the same always. We m%st a$ree that the lin$%ists are ri$ht in this partic%lar case4 the fact that from the ndo3E%ropean lan$%a$es there were some similarities between its modern lan$%a$es. We m%st than! "ir illiam Jones, Dane #asmus #ask, $ran% Bopp and Jacob Grimm to their wor! and their points of "iew. 1hey seem to find commonalities between En$lish, 6erman, #atin and Sans!rit referrin$ to the letters f and v that are s%bstit%ted in other $ro%ps by p. An e7ample wo%ld be father and vater in En$lish and 6erman, pater in #atin and pitar in Sans!rit. 1his shows %s that the mono$enesis of lan$%a$e is a "ery powerf%l and tr%e idea, beca%se these soun& shifts are fo%nd in many other lan$%a$es. 1he a%thor wrote on this s%b2ect rather than on some other s%b2ect beca%se of its %nicity, comple7ity and beca%se it is in o%r interest to !now the roots of the lan$%a$e, to reali8e the fact that 9ostratic hypothesis may be $en%ine. wo%ld indisp%table recommend this article to others beca%se the wor! of the So"iet lin$%ists :ladisla" +. llych3S"itych and Aaron 5. ;ol$opols!y demonstrated that a hypothetical ancestor called 9ostratic came across from the lin!in$ of si7 families of lan$%a$es. What is asto%ndin$ is the fact that these families transmit the c%lt%ral herita$e of three '%arters of h%man!ind< Also the method of chartin$ lan$%a$e families as branches on a tree belon$s to A%$%st Schleicher (mid3,=th cent%ry) and another research of lin$%ists >contained in findin$ the co$nates of two different lan$%a$es.

t is tr%e indeed that the !inship, bo%nd of lan$%a$es is related to their history and not to its content beca%se it is "ery well !nown that the past of a lan$%a$e is what defines it. 1he most widespread $ro%p of lan$%a$es today is the ndo3E%ropean, spo!en by half the world's pop%lation. 1his entire $ro%p, ran$in$ from ?indi and Persian to 9orwe$ian and En$lish is belie"ed to descend from the lan$%a$e of a tribe of nomads roamin$ the plains of eastern E%rope and western Asia. 6am!redli8e and "ano" , two American lin$%ists, do%bted abo%t the )homeland* . t is belie"ed that the protolan$%a$e ori$inates from here and the readers may a$ree with this beca%se of some words that apparently were borrowed from the )non3 ndo3E%ropean lan$%a$es of +esopotamia specifically eastern Anatolia (now part of 1%r!ey) and the so%thern &a%cas%s*. 1he landscape described by the protolan$%a$e as now resol"ed m%st lie somewhere in the crescent that c%r"es aro%nd the so%thern shores of the 5lac! Sea, so%th from the 5al!an penins%la, east across ancient Anatolia (today the non3E%ropean territories of 1%r!ey) and north to the &a%cas%s +o%ntains. ?ere the a$ric%lt%ral re"ol%tion created the food s%rpl%s that impelled the ndo3E%ropeans to fo%nd "illa$es and city3states from which, abo%t @,... years a$o, they be$an their mi$rations o"er the E%rasian continent and into history. #in$%ists tra"el a lon$ path in pro"in$ their 9ostratic hypothesis, b%t they are "ery confident in their reconstr%ctions. 1hat is beca%se they can ma!e predictions that can be tested positi"ely a$ainst empirical e"idence. 1homas #. +ar!ey made a "ery h%moro%s b%t also compellin$ state referrin$ to the fact that if a lan$%a$e had only fi"e li"in$ spea!ers left , lin$%ists wo%ldnAt be seen as r%shin$ aro%nd with an amb%lance and a tape recorder. t is a "ery tr%e state beca%se there arenAt eno%$h lin$%ists and f%ndin$. What is "ery pitif%l is the fact that ,,half of the 'orl&(s )*+++ e,isting languages 'ill &ie out in the ne,t century. No even is sure ho' many there might have been. ) n my opinion, the !ey3words that can help the reader in dechiperin$ this article are ,,-itochon&rial Eve* , ,,Amerin& theory* , ,,language families an& superfamilies*, ,,linguistic an& genetic trees*, ,,linguistic research*, ,,monogenesis hypothesis* , ,, Nostratic hypothesis* , ,,origin of language* , ,,the homelan& of the .n&o/European languages0 . 1uestions2

,. Why was 6reenber$As article ,,#an$%a$e in the Americas* , on the classification of the myriad lan$%a$es , %nder attac!? B. Why it is considered that if 9ostratic was spo!en at a time ,,when the do$ was 2%st bein$ domesticated then it wo%ld be perfectly reasonable*? C. Why didnAt the laryn$eal consonants s%r"i"e in any !nown ton$%e? D. Why does Eric P. ?amp consider the alternation between k and 3 %nacceptable in k45na6345na (do$ and wolf)?