Merritt Ruhlen
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Merritt Ruhlen (May 10, 1944 – January 29, 2021) was an American
linguist 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 ...
who worked on the classification of languages and what this reveals about the origin and evolution of modern humans. Amongst other linguists, Ruhlen's work was recognized as standing outside the mainstream of comparative-historical linguistics. He was the principal advocate and defender 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 ...
's approach to language classification.


Biography

Born Frank Merritt Ruhlen, 1944, Ruhlen studied at
Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...
, the
University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...
, the
University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...
and the
University of Bucharest The University of Bucharest (UB) () is a public university, public research university in Bucharest, Romania. It was founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princely Academy of Bucharest, P ...
. He received his PhD in 1973 from
Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
with a dissertation on the generative analysis of Romanian
morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...
. Subsequently, Ruhlen worked for several years as a research assistant on the Stanford Universals Project, directed by
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 ...
and Charles Ferguson. From 1994, he was a lecturer in Anthropological Sciences and Human Biology at Stanford and co-director, along with
Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American theoretical physicist who played a preeminent role in the development of the theory of elementary particles. Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as the funda ...
(and, until 2005, the late
Sergei Starostin Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguistics, historical linguist and philology, philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothetical proto-languages, including hi ...
), of the
Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inc ...
Program on the
Evolution of Human Languages The Evolution of Human Languages (EHL) project is a historical-comparative linguistics research project hosted by the Santa Fe Institute. It aims to provide a detailed genealogical classification of the world's languages. The project was founded ...
.Starostin 2004 From 2005, Ruhlen was on the advisory board of the
Genographic Project The Genographic Project, launched on 13 April 2005 by the National Geographic Society and IBM, was a Molecular anthropology, genetic anthropological study (sales discontinued on 31 May 2019) that aimed to map historical human migrations patter ...
and held appointment as a visiting professor at the
City University of Hong Kong The City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) is a public research university in Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1984 as the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and formally established as the City University of Hong Kong in 1994 ...
. Ruhlen knew and worked with
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 ...
for three-and-a-half decades and became the principal advocate and defender of Greenberg's methods of language classification.


Books

Ruhlen is the author of several books dealing with the languages of the world and their classifications. * ''A Guide to the Languages of the World'' (1975) provides information on the
phonological Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often prefer ...
systems and classifications of 700 languages, prefaced by background information for linguists as well as non-linguists. A greatly expanded version of this work was published in 2005 on the
Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inc ...
web site. * ''A Guide to the World’s Languages, Volume I: Classification'' (1987) includes classification of the world's languages; a history and analysis of the genetic classification of languages; and a defense of the controversial taxonomic work of Joseph Greenberg. * ''The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue'' (1994a) * ''On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy'' (1994b). In 1994, Ruhlen published these two books that have similar themes and titles, but are directed at different audiences. The former book, directed at laypersons, includes exercises in which the readers are invited to classify languages themselves using Greenberg's technique, known variously as "mass comparison" and " multilateral comparison". The latter book is aimed at linguists and maintains that some of the assumptions current among
historical linguists Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how language change, languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of language ...
are incorrect. One of these assumptions is that the only valid criteria for determining a language family are regular sound correspondences and the reconstruction of its
protolanguage In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...
. According to Ruhlen, these steps can only be carried out after the fact of familyhood has been established by classification.


Research topics


Multidisciplinary approach

Ruhlen has been in the forefront of attempts to coordinate the results of
historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...
and other human sciences, such as
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 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, ...
.Chen, Sokal, and Ruhlen 1995Ruhlen 1995eKnight ''et al.'' 2003 In this endeavor he has extensively worked with the geneticist
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (; 25 January 1922 – 31 August 2018) was an Italian geneticist. He was a population geneticist who taught at the University of Parma, the University of Pavia and then at Stanford University. Works Schooling and p ...
for three decades and with the archaeologist
Colin Renfrew Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, (25 July 1937 – 24 November 2024) was a British archaeologist, paleolinguist and Conservative peer noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, ...
for two decades.


Taxonomic methods

Most of the criticism directed at Ruhlen centers on his defense of Joseph Greenberg's technique of language classification, called "mass comparison" or "multilateral comparison." It involves comparing selected elements of the morphology and basic vocabulary of the languages being investigated, examining them for similarities in
sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...
and meaning, and formulating a hypothesis of classification based on these. Ruhlen maintains that such classification is the first step in the
comparative method In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards ...
and that the other operations of
historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...
, in particular the formulation of sound correspondences and the reconstruction of a
protolanguage In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...
, can only be carried out after a hypothesis of classification has been established. While Hock, for instance,Hock 1986Hock and Joseph 1996 claims that only reconstruction proves genetic affinity, and that
Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
, Uralic, Dravidian, Austronesian, Bantu, and
Uto-Aztecan The Uto-Aztecan languages are a family of native American languages, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The name of the language family reflects the common ...
have all been proved by successful reconstructions, Ruhlen disagrees, saying: ''And yet all of these families were universally accepted as valid families before anyone even thought of trying to reconstruct the protolanguage.''Ruhlen 2001d As an example, Ruhlen mentions Delbrück (1842–1922), who considered Indo-European to have been proved by the time of Bopp at the beginning of the 19th century; the basis for this proof was the "juxtaposition of words and forms of similar meaning."Delbrück 1880 However, Ruhlen's claim was refuted by Poser and Campbell. Ruhlen believes his classification of the world's languages is supported by
population genetics Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and among populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as Adaptation (biology), adaptation, s ...
research by the geneticist
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (; 25 January 1922 – 31 August 2018) was an Italian geneticist. He was a population geneticist who taught at the University of Parma, the University of Pavia and then at Stanford University. Works Schooling and p ...
, who has identified the distribution of certain human genes in populations throughout the world. He has used this evidence to construct
phylogenetic tree A phylogenetic tree or phylogeny is a graphical representation which shows the evolutionary history between a set of species or taxa during a specific time.Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA. In ...
s showing the evolutionary history of these populations.Cavalli-Sforza ''et al.'' 1988Cavalli-Sforza 2000 Cavalli-Sforza's findings are argued to match up remarkably well with Ruhlen's language classification. Ruhlen's linguist opponents hold that genetic relatedness cannot be used to adduce linguistic relatedness. This tree has been criticized by some linguists and anthropologists on several grounds: that it makes selective use of languages and populations (omitting the numerous
Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 ...
speakers of northern China, for example); that it assumes the truth of such linguistic groups as Austric and Amerind that are controversial; and that several of the population groups listed are defined not by their genes but by their languages, making the correlation irrelevant to a comparison of genetic and linguistic branching and tautological as well.Bateman ''et al.'' 1990Trask 1996


Amerind macrofamily

The prevailing opinion on the classification of
Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the 180th meridian.- The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Geopolitically, ...
languages is that there are many separate language families in the Americas, among which concrete evidence for genetic affinity is lacking.Campbell 1997 Greenberg published his contrary hypothesis, Amerind language family, in 1987 in one of his major books, ''Language in the Americas''. According to the Amerind hypothesis, all of the languages of North and South America, except for the
Na-Dene Na-Dene ( ; also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included but is now general ...
and
Eskimo–Aleut The Eskaleut ( ), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent, and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of ...
language families, belong to a single
macrofamily A macrofamily (also called a superfamily or superphylum) is a term often used in historical linguistics to refer to a hypothetical higher order grouping of languages. Metonymically, the term became associated with the practice of trying to group ...
. One of Greenberg's most controversial hypotheses, it was updated by Ruhlen in 2007. Ruhlen has published papers presenting research in support of it, e.g., in 1994, 1995, and 2004. Ruhlen stresses the importance of the three-way ''i'' / ''u'' / ''a'' (i.e. ''masculine'' / ''feminine'' / ''neutral'')
ablaut In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut ( , from German ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its relate ...
in such forms as ''t'ina'' / ''t'una'' / ''t'ana'' (''"son / daughter / child"'') as well as of the general American pronominal pattern ''na'' / ''ma'' (i.e. ''"I / you"''), first noted by
Alfredo Trombetti Alfredo Trombetti (16 January 1866 in Bologna – 5 July 1929 in Venice) was an Italian linguist active in the early 20th century. Career overview Trombetti was a professor at the University of Bologna. He was a member of the Italian Academy. ...
in 1905. Some linguists have attributed this pronoun pattern to other than genetic causes.Nichols 1992 He refers to the earliest beginnings of the dispute,Ruhlen 1994b quoting from a personal letter of
Edward Sapir Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American anthropologist-linguistics, linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States ...
to A.L. Kroeber (1918):Sapir, cited in Sapir 1984 "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." 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.


Kusunda as an Indo-Pacific language

Whitehouse, Ruhlen, and others have concludedWhitehouse ''et al.'' 2004 that the
Kusunda language Kusunda or Kusanda (endonym ) is a language isolate spoken by a few among the Kusunda people in western and central Nepal. As of 2023, it only has a single fluent speaker, Kamala Sen-Khatri, although there are efforts underway to keep the lan ...
of
Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...
belongs to the tentative
Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...
superfamilyGreenberg 1971 rather than belonging to the
Tibeto-Burman The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people speak ...
group or being a
language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...
. They adduce: * within the personal pronouns, ** an independent first-person pronoun based on /t/; ** an independent second-person pronoun based on /n/ or /ŋ/; ** an independent third-person pronoun based on /g/ or /k/; ** a vowel alternation in the first- and second-person independent pronouns in which /u/ occurs in subject forms and /i/ in possessive (or oblique) forms; * a possessive suffix -/yi/; * the consonantal base also indicates the verbal subject; * demonstrative pronouns based on /t/ and /n/; * the core vocabulary. The following table shows similarities between the pronominal systems of several languages claimed to belong to the Indo-Pacific family. The following objections have been made to this tentative proposal:Poser 2004 * the existence of an Indo-Pacific superfamily is disputed; * pronouns can be borrowed; * similarities may be due to chance; * linguistic relationships cannot be adduced solely on the basis of the physical attributes of the speakers, and the current proposal concurs with an old one allegedly so based; * misrepresentation of the data (e.g., ''kitɛ'' in Juwoi is actually a demonstrative meaning "this", never used as a personal pronoun.)


Yeniseian–Na-Dene

According to Ruhlen, linguistic evidence indicates that the Yeniseian languages, spoken in central Siberia, are most closely related to the Na-Dene languages of western North America (among which, concurring with Sapir, he includes Haida).Ruhlen 1998a The hypothesis is supported by the separate researches of Heinrich K. WernerWerner 2004 and Edward J. Vajda (Vajda rejects Haida's membership in the Na-Dene language family).Vajda 2010 This would mean that Na-Dene represents a distinct migration of peoples from Asia to the New World, intermediate between the migration of speakers of the putative Proto-Amerind, estimated at 13,000 years ago, and the migration of Eskimo–Aleut speakers around 5,000 years ago. At other times, Ruhlen has maintained the existence of a language family called Dene–Caucasian.Ruhlen 1998b, 231–246


The Proto-Sapiens hypothesis

On the question of the Proto-Sapiens language and global etymologies, most mainstream historical linguists reject Ruhlen's assumptions and methodology,Kessler 2001Picard 1998Salmons 1997 holding that it is impossible to reconstruct a language spoken at least 30,000 years ago (possibly more than 100,000 years ago). Ruhlen has responded that he (and Bengtson) have never claimed to have reconstructed Proto-Sapiens, but have simply pointed out that reflexes of very ancient words can still be found in the world's languages:Bengtson and Ruhlen 1994 ''For each lobaletymology ... we present a phonetic and semantic gloss, followed by examples from different language families. ... We do not deal here with reconstruction, and these emantic and phoneticglosses are intended merely to characterize the most general meaning and phonological shape of each root. Future work on reconstruction will no doubt discover cases where the most widespread meaning or shape was not original.'' Ruhlen also maintains that the “temporal ceiling” assumed by many mainstream linguists – the time depth beyond which the comparative method fails, considered by someKaufman 1990 to lie at roughly 6,000 to 8,000 years ago – does not exist, and that the now universally recognized existence of a language family as old as Afroasiatic, not to mention the even older Eurasiatic (whose existence remains controversial), shows that the comparative method can reach farther into the past than most linguists currently accept.Ruhlen 1994a, 76–78


Notes


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Library of Congress Authorities
entry for Ruhlen, Merritt 1944–
accessed September 3, 2007 * * * * * * * * * * * * Ruhlen, Merritt. 1994e. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. ''
Mother Tongue A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongue'' refers ...
'' (Newsletter of the Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory), November 1994, 23. OCLC: 35315526 * * Ruhlen, Merritt. 1995a. Proto-Amerind Numerals. ''Anthropological Science'', January 1995, 103(3): 209–225. Tokyo: Anthropological Society of Nippon. * Ruhlen, Merritt. 1995b. A Note on Amerind Pronouns. ''
Mother Tongue A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongue'' refers ...
'' (Newsletter of the Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory). March 1995, 24: 60–61. OCLC: 35315526 * Ruhlen, Merritt. 1995c. Proto-Amerind *QETS’ 'Left (Hand)'. ''
Mother Tongue A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongue'' refers ...
'' (Newsletter of the Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory). March 1995, 24: 69–70. OCLC: 35315526 * Ruhlen, Merritt. 1995d. On the Origin of the Amerind Pronominal Pattern. In Chen, Matthew Y.; Tzeng, Ovid J. L., eds, ''In honor of William S-Y. Wang''. Taipei: Pyramid Press. 405–407. . * * * Ruhlen, Merritt. 1998b. Dene–Caucasian: A New Linguistic Family. In Omoto, Keiichi; Tobias, Phillip V., eds. ''The Origins and Past of Modern Humans—Towards Reconciliation''.
Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...
: World Scientific. * * * * * * * Vajda, Edward J. 2010. Yeniseian, Na-Dene, and Historical Linguistics. In J. Kari and B. Potter, eds., ''The Dene–Yeniseian Connection''. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Fairbanks, Department of Anthropology. Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska, new series, vol. 5. pp. 100–118. * * WERNER, Heinrich K. (2004): Zur jenissejisch-indianischen Urverwandtschaft n the Yeniseian-[AmericanIndian primordial relationship">merican.html" ;"title="n the Yeniseian-[American">n the Yeniseian-[AmericanIndian primordial relationship Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz *


External links


Merritt Ruhlen's homepage (archived)
including an exhaustive list of his publications. :* Including the latest version o
An Amerind Etymological Dictionary (archived)


:* Members

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruhlen, Merritt 1944 births 2021 deaths Linguists from the United States Historical linguists Linguists of Amerind languages Rice University alumni University of Paris alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Stanford University alumni Stanford University Department of Anthropology faculty Linguists of Romanian Linguists of Kusunda Linguists of Eurasiatic languages Linguists of Indigenous languages of the Americas Long-range comparative linguists People from Washington, D.C.