Pseudoscientific language comparison is a form of pseudo-scholarship that aims at establishing historical associations between languages by naïve postulations of similarities between them. While comparative linguistics also studies the historical relationships of languages, linguistic comparisons are deemed pseudoscientific when they are not based on the established practices. Pseudoscientific language comparison is usually performed by people with little or no specialization in the field of comparative linguistics. It is a widespread type of linguistic pseudoscience. The most common method applied in pseudoscientific language comparisons is to search two or more languages for words that seem similar in their sound and meaning. While such similarities often seem convincing to laypeople, linguistic scientists see this kind of comparison as unreliable for two primary reasons. First, the method applied is not well-defined: the criterion of similarity is subjective and thus not subject to verification or falsification, which is contrary to the principles of the scientific method. Second, the large size of all languages' vocabulary makes it easy to find coincidentally similar words between languages. Because of its unreliability, the method of searching for isolated similarities is rejected by nearly all comparative linguists (however, see

mass comparison Mass comparison is a method developed by Joseph Greenberg to determine the level of genetic relatedness between languages. It is now usually called multilateral comparison. The method is rejected by most linguists , though not all. Some of the to ...

for a controversial method that operates by similarity). Instead of noting isolated similarities, comparative linguists use a technique called 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 t ...

to search for regular (i.e. recurring) correspondences between the languages'

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...

and core vocabulary in order to test hypotheses of relatedness. Certain types of languages seem to attract much more attention in pseudoscientific comparisons than others. These include languages of ancient civilizations such as Egyptian, Etruscan or Sumerian; language isolates or near-isolates such as

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

and Ainu; and languages that are unrelated to their geographical neighbors such as Hungarian.

Political or religious implications

In some cases, languages are associated with one another for political or religious reasons, despite a lack of support from accepted methods of

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...

: For example, it was argued by Niclas Wahlgren that Herman Lundborg encouraged that the posited

Ural-Altaic Ural-Altaic, Uralo-Altaic or Uraltaic is a linguistic convergence zone and former language-family proposal uniting the Uralic and the Altaic (in the narrow sense) languages. It is generally now agreed that even the Altaic languages do not share ...

or Turanian, language family, which seeks to relate

Sami Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...

to the

Mongolian language Mongolian is the official language of Mongolia and both the most widely spoken and best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residen ...

, was used to justify

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...

towards the Sami people in particular. (There are also strong, albeit areal not genetic, similarities between the Uralic and

Altaic Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. Speakers of these languages are ...

languages, which provide a more benign but nonetheless incorrect basis for this theory.) Some believers in

Abrahamic religions The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout Abrahamic religious scriptures such as the Bible and the Quran. Jewish tradition ...

have sought to derive their native languages from

Classical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of t ...

. For example,

Herbert W. Armstrong Herbert W. Armstrong (July 31, 1892 – January 16, 1986) was an American evangelist who founded the Worldwide Church of God (WCG). An early pioneer of radio and television evangelism, Armstrong preached what he claimed was the comprehensive ...

(1892–1986), a proponent of British Israelism, claimed that the word 'British' comes from Hebrew בְּרִית (, meaning '

covenant Covenant may refer to: Religion * Covenant (religion), a formal alliance or agreement made by God with a religious community or with humanity in general ** Covenant (biblical), in the Hebrew Bible ** Covenant in Mormonism, a sacred agreement b ...

') and אּישׁ (, meaning 'man'), as supposed proof that the British people are the 'covenant people' of God. Pre-modern scholars of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' language spoken by Adam and Eve, often relied on belief in the literal truth of Genesis and of the accuracy of the names transcribed therein. On the other hand,

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

scholars Johannes Goropius Becanus (1519–1572) and

Simon Stevin Simon Stevin (; 1548–1620), sometimes called Stevinus, was a Flemish mathematician, scientist and music theorist. He made various contributions in many areas of science and engineering, both theoretical and practical. He also translated vario ...

(1548–1620) argued that the Adamic language had been a dialect of their own native language,

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

. The

Sun Language Theory The Sun Language Theory ( tr, Güneş Dil Teorisi) was a Turkish ultranationalist, racist, pseudolinguistic, and pseudoscientific hypothesis developed in Turkey in the 1930s that proposed that all human languages are descendants of one proto-T ...

, positing a proto-

Turkic language The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...

as the ancestor of all human languages, was motivated by

Turkish nationalism Turkish nationalism ( tr, Türk milliyetçiliği) is a political ideology that promotes and glorifies the Turkish people, as either a national, ethnic, or linguistic group. The term " ultranationalism" is often used to describe Turkish nationa ...

. The Israeli-American linguist Paul Wexler is known for his

fringe theories A fringe theory is an idea or a viewpoint which differs from the accepted scholarship of the time within its field. Fringe theories include the models and proposals of fringe science, as well as similar ideas in other areas of scholarship, such ...

about the origin of

Jewish population As of 2020, the world's "core" Jewish population (those identifying as Jews above all else) was estimated at 15 million, 0.2% of the 8 billion worldwide population. This number rises to 18 million with the addition of the "connected" Jewish pop ...

s and Jewish languages: * that most

Ashkenazi Jews Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...

are of Turkic origin, and that their language,

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

, is ultimately derived from Judaeo-Slavic * that most

Sephardi Jews Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...

are of Berber origin, as is their language, Ladino The Lithuanian–American archaeologist

Marija Gimbutas Marija Gimbutas ( lt, Marija Gimbutienė, ; January 23, 1921 – February 2, 1994) was a Lithuanian archaeologist and anthropologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of " Old Europe" and for her Kurgan hypothesis ...

argued during the mid-1900s that Basque is clearly related to the extinct

Pictish Pictish is the extinct Brittonic language spoken by the Picts, the people of eastern and northern Scotland from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geographica ...

and Etruscan languages, even though at least the comparison had earlier been rejected within a decade of being proposed in 1892 by Sir John Rhys. Her motivation was to show Basque was a remnant of an "

Old European culture Old Europe is a term coined by the Lithuanian archaeologist Marija Gimbutas to describe what she perceived as a relatively homogeneous pre-Indo-European Neolithic and Copper Age cultural horizon or civilisation in Southeastern Europe and part ...

Traits and characteristics

There is no universal way to identify pseudoscientific language comparisons; indeed, it is not clear that all pseudoscientific language comparisons form a single group. However, the following characteristics tend to be more common among pseudoscientific theories (and their advocates) than among scientific ones: *Failure to apply an accepted, or at least systematic, method to demonstrate regular correspondences between the languages. Unsystematic comparisons are effectively unfalsifiable.Trask, p.395 *Failure to present grammatical evidence for relatedness: claims are based exclusively on word comparisons, even though in comparative linguistics grammatical evidence is also required to confirm relatedness. *Arbitrary segmentation of compared forms: comparisons are based on the similarity of only a part of the words compared (usually the first syllable), whereas the rest of the word is ignored. *Disregard for the effects of

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 ...

on word structure: uninflected

root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...

forms may be compared with fully inflected forms, or marked forms may be used in preference to lesser- or unmarked forms. *Failure to consider the possibility of borrowing and

areal feature In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, or, common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted to ...

s. Neighboring languages may share much vocabulary and many grammatical features as a result of language contact, and adequate application of the

is required to determine whether the similarities result from contact or from relatedness. *Relying on typological similarities between languages: the morphological type of the language is claimed to provide evidence for relatedness, but in comparative linguistics only material parallels are accepted as evidence of a historical connection. *Neglect of known history: present-day forms of words are used in comparisons, neglecting either the attested or the reconstructed history of the language in question, or words of varying time depths (such as current, archaic, and reconstructed words) and reliability of reconstruction are used interchangeably. *Advocation of geographically far-fetched connections, such as comparing

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

(in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

) to

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language **So ...

(in

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

), or

(in

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

) to Ainu (in Japan), or Castilian (in Spain) to

(in Japan). This criterion is only suggestive, though, as a long distance does not exclude the possibility of a relationship:

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

is demonstrably related to

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

(in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

), and Hawaiian to Malagasy (on

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

). *Advocacy of fanciful historical scenarios on the basis of the purported linguistic findings, e.g. claims of unknown civilizations or ancient migrations across oceans. Proponents of pseudoscientific language comparisons also tend to share some common characteristics with cranks in other fields of science: * Overestimation of their own knowledge or competence in one or more of the languages under comparison, or their historical development, and underestimation of experts' knowledge. For example, assigning of incorrect meanings to words or sentences, quoting of rare or even spurious lexemes, morphs or meanings or of obscure dialect forms, misinterpretation of explanations in linguistic literature, or failure to take well-known developments or facts into account. When forms and meanings are simply compiled and quoted from dictionaries (or even only a single source), inaccuracies creep in very easily.Campbell, pp.325-326 Even linguistically trained native speakers are not necessarily linguistic experts in their own language, its dialectology, and its history; and even professional linguists are not necessarily experts in large numbers of diverse languages and families. *Claims that the purported remote linguistic relationship is obvious and easy to perceive. A distant relationship between languages is usually not obvious on a superficial examination, and can only be uncovered via a successful application of the

. *Failure to submit results to

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...

ed linguistic journals. *Assertion that criticism towards the theory is motivated by traditionalism, ideological factors or conspiracy on behalf of the linguistic community.

References

* * *{{cite book , title=Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics , last=Hock , first=Hans Henrich , author2=Brian D. Joseph , year=1996 , publisher=Mouton de Gruyter , location=Berlin; New York , isbn=978-3-11-014784-1

External links

How likely are chance resemblances between languages?
Language comparison Pseudolinguistics