Harold C. Fleming
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Harold Crane Fleming (December 23, 1926 – April 29, 2015) was an American
anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
and historical linguist specializing in the cultures and languages of the Horn of Africa. As an adherent of the Four Field School of American anthropology, he stressed the integration of physical anthropology,
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
,
archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
, and
cultural anthropology Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The term ...
in solving anthropological problems. Fleming was motivated by the civil rights movement early in his life, and committed the rest of his life to studies to promote equal opportunity.


Career

Since 1965, Fleming had been affiliated with
Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...
, continuing to the present as Research Fellow in the African Studies Center and Emeritus Professor of Anthropology. He conducted extensive field work in Northeast Africa, mostly in
Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
. Using data from field work by himself and others, Fleming studied and published touching each of the four language groupings in Ethiopia: Semitic, Cushitic (1976), Omotic (1969, 1970), and Nilo-Saharan, plus the enigmatic Shabo (2002) and Ongota (2006). Early in his career, Fleming published a paper (Fleming 1969) that outlined an important taxonomic proposal, claiming that what had up to then been known as the "Western Cushitic" language family was not a part of Cushitic at all, but instead makes up a sixth primary branch of Afroasiatic, for which he coined the name Omotic. The proposal has since been widely but not universally accepted. He continued in the vein of solving taxonomic problems involving the languages spoken in Africa and worldwide (Fleming 1976, 1987, 1988, 1991, 2002, 2006, etc.). Fleming was a vocal advocate of, and practitioner in, the effort to extend the application of historical linguistic methods as far as possible into the past. He recommended integrating its results with those of physical anthropology,
genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...
, and archaeology, in order to produce a unified view of human
prehistory Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins   million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use ...
. Fleming was also a strong supporter of the sometimes controversial proposals of
Joseph Greenberg Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages. Life Early life and education Joseph Greenberg was born on M ...
, emphasizing the success of Greenberg's
classification Classification is the activity of assigning objects to some pre-existing classes or categories. This is distinct from the task of establishing the classes themselves (for example through cluster analysis). Examples include diagnostic tests, identif ...
of "1500 fricanlanguages into four large taxa where almost all have stayed ever since" (Fleming 2000-2001). In 1986, Fleming met the young members of the " Moscow Circle" of historical linguists. He was deeply impressed by the long-range linguistic probing of scholars in
Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
who were trying to extend genetic taxonomy of human languages beyond the levels achieved in the 1950s and 1960s. In the fall of 1986, Fleming began circulating letters to linguists and anthropologists outside of
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
. By the fourth issue (November 1987), the newsletter had acquired a more formal appearance and the name '' Mother Tongue''. In 1989, what had been the "Long Range Comparison Club" was legally incorporated as the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory (ASLIP). Fleming has served as President of ASLIP (1988–1996), Secretary-Treasurer (1996–98), and Vice President and Acting Treasurer (2004–present). ASLIP's mission is "to encourage international, interdisciplinary information sharing, discussion, and debate among biogeneticists, paleoanthropologists, archaeologists, and historical linguists on questions relating to the emerging synthesis on language origins and ancestral human spoken languages." Since 1995, ASLIP has published the journal ''Mother Tongue''. A
festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...
honoring Fleming was published in 2008.Bengtson, John D., ed. ''In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory: Essays in the four fields of anthropology. In honor of Harold Crane Fleming.'' John Benjamins Publishing, 2008. In this volume, there are sections that reflect Fleming's wide interests, including languages and cultures in Africa, "Languages of Eurasia, Oceania, and the Americas", and "Human origins, Language origins, and Proto-Sapiens language".


A selection of works by Harold C. Fleming

* 1965. ''The age-grading culture of East Africa: an historical inquiry''. University of Pittsburgh. * 1969. " Asa and Aramanik: Cushitic Hunters in Masai-Land." In ''Ethnology'', VIII. * 1969. "The classification of West Cushitic within Hamito-Semitic." In ''Eastern African History'', edited by Daniel McCall, Norman Bennett, and Jeffrey Butler, 3-27. Boston University Studies in African History 3. * 1976. " Cushitic and Omotic." In ''Language in Ethiopia'', edited by M. Lionel Bender et al., 34-53. * 1978. " Ethiopians and East Africans." In ''The International Journal of African Historical Studies'', XI, 2. * 1978. "Microtaxonomy: Language and blood groups in the Horn of Africa." In ''Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Session B, April 13–16, 1978'', edited by Robert Hess, 25-49. * 1979-1980. "Linguistic and biological view on Somali prehistoric relations." In ''Somalia and the World'', 34-37. * 1982. " Kuliak external relations: Step one." In ''Nilotic Studies'', from ''Proceedings of the International Symposium on Languages and History of the Nilotic Peoples, Cologne, January 4–6, 1982, Volume 2'', 423-478. * 1987. " Hadza and Sandawe genetic relations." In ''Proceedings of the International Symposium on African Hunters and Gatherers'', edited by Franz Rottland, 157-189. Sprache und Geschichte in Africa, Volume 7.2. * 1988. "Towards a definitive classification of human languages", review of ''A Guide to the World’s Languages'' by Merritt Ruhlen. ''Diachronica'' 4, 159-223. * 1990. “A Grammatical Sketch of Dime (Dim‑Af) of the Lower Omo.” ''Omotic Language Studies'' ed. by Richard Hayward, 494–583. London, S.O.A.S., University of London. * 1991. "A new taxonomic hypothesis: Borean or Boralean." ''Mother Tongue'' 14 (Newsletter of ASLIP), 16 pp. * 2000. "Glottalization in Eastern Armenian." ''Journal of Indo-European Studies'' 28.1-2, 155-196. * 2000-2001. " Joseph H. Greenberg: A tribute and an appraisal." ''Mother Tongue: The Journal'' 6, 9-28. * 2002. " Shabo: A new African phylum or a special relic of Old Nilo-Saharan?" ''Mother Tongue: The Journal'' 7, 1-38. * 2002
"Afrasian and its closest relatives: The Borean hypothesis"
(Abstract of paper.) * 2006. '' Ongota: A Decisive Language in African Prehistory.'' Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.


See also

*
Afroasiatic languages The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of th ...
* Ethiopian studies * Somali studies * ''Mother Tongue'' (journal)


References


External links


Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory (ASLIP)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fleming, Harold C. 1922 births 2015 deaths Linguists from the United States Boston University faculty Ethiopianists Somalists Historical linguists Linguists of Borean languages Linguists of Afroasiatic languages Linguists of Cushitic languages Linguists of Omotic languages Linguists of Khoisan languages Linguists of Nilo-Saharan languages Linguists of Ongota Linguists of Shabo Linguists of Kuliak languages Linguists of Armenian Long-range comparative linguists American expatriates in Ethiopia