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Borean
Borean (also Boreal or Boralean) is a hypothetical (i.e. proposed) linguistic macrofamily that encompasses almost all language families worldwide except those native to the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and the Andaman Islands. It is considered a fringe theory within mainstream linguistics, relying heavily on the discredited mass comparison method to derive genetic relationships. Borean proposes that the various languages spoken in Eurasia and adjacent regions have a Genetic relationship (linguistics), genealogical relationship, and ultimately descend from languages spoken during the Upper Paleolithic in the millennia following the Last Glacial Maximum. The name ''Borean'' is based on the Greek :wikt:Βορέας, βορέας, and means "northern". This reflects the fact that the group is held to include most language families that are native to the northern hemisphere. Two distinct models of Borean exist: that of Harold C. Fleming and that of Sergei Starostin. Fleming's model The co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 his work on the controversial Altaic languages, Altaic theory, the formulation of the Dené–Caucasian languages, Dené–Caucasian hypothesis, and the proposal of a Borean languages, Borean language of still earlier date. None of his proposed Macrofamily, macrofamilies have seen wide-scale acceptance in the linguistic community (and are mostly seen as implausible). Theories In 1986, Starostin and Igor M. Diakonoff suggested that the Hurro-Urartian languages belong to the Northeast Caucasian languages, Northeast Caucasian language family. Starostin also helped with reconstructions Proto-Kiranti, Tibeto-Burman, Proto-Tibeto-Burman, Yeniseian languages, Proto-Yeniseian, North Caucasian languages, Proto-North-Caucasian, and Proto-Altaic lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nostratic Languages
Nostratic is a hypothetical language macrofamily including many of the language families of northern Eurasia first proposed in 1903. Though a historically important proposal, it is now generally considered a fringe theory. Its exact composition varies based on proponent; it typically includes the Kartvelian languages, Kartvelian, Indo-European languages, Indo-European, and Uralic languages, Uralic languages; some languages from the similarly controversial Altaic languages, Altaic family, the Afroasiatic languages, and the Dravidian languages (also referred to as Elamo-Dravidian languages, Elamo-Dravidian). The Nostratic hypothesis originates with Holger Pedersen (linguist), Holger Pedersen in the early 20th century. The name "Nostratic" is due to Pedersen (1903), derived from the Latin '':wikt:nostras, nostrates'' "fellow countrymen". The hypothesis was significantly expanded in the 1960s by Soviet linguists, notably Vladislav Illich-Svitych and Aharon Dolgopolsky. The hypothes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurasiatic Languages
Eurasiatic is a hypothetical and controversial language macrofamily proposal that would include many language families historically spoken in northern, western, and southern Eurasia. The idea of a Eurasiatic superfamily dates back more than 100 years. Joseph Greenberg's proposal, dating to the 1990s, is the most widely discussed version. In 2013, Mark Pagel and three colleagues published what they believe to be statistical evidence for a Eurasiatic language family. The branches of Eurasiatic vary between proposals, but typically include the highly controversial Altaic macrofamily (composed in part of Mongolic, Tungusic and Turkic), Chukchi-Kamchatkan, Eskimo–Aleut, Indo-European, and Uralic—although Greenberg uses the controversial Uralic-Yukaghir classification instead. Other branches sometimes included are the Kartvelian and Dravidian families, as proposed by Pagel et al., in addition to the language isolates Nivkh, Etruscan and Greenberg's "Korean–Japanese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dené–Caucasian Languages
Dené–Caucasian is a discredited language family proposal that includes widely-separated language groups spoken in the Northern Hemisphere: Sino-Tibetan languages, Yeniseian languages and Burushaski in Asia; Na-Dené languages in North America; as well as Vasconic languages (including Basque) and North Caucasian languages from Europe. A narrower connection specifically between North American Na-Dené and Siberian Yeniseian (the Dené–Yeniseian languages hypothesis) was proposed by Edward Vajda in 2008, and has met with some acceptance within the community of professional linguists. The validity of the rest of the family, however, is viewed as doubtful or rejected by nearly all historical linguists. History of the hypothesis Classifications similar to Dené–Caucasian were put forward in the 20th century by Alfredo Trombetti, Edward Sapir, Robert Bleichsteiner, Karl Bouda, E. J. Furnée, René Lafon, Robert Shafer, Olivier Guy Tailleur, Morris Swadesh, Vla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 together various languages and language families (including isolates) in a larger scale classification. Campbell, Lyle and Mixco, Mauricio J. (2007), ''A Glossary of Historical Linguistics'', University of Utah Press/Edinburgh University Press. However, some scholars Campbell, Lyle (2004), ''Historical Linguistics: An Introduction'', Edinburgh University Press. view this term as superfluous if not outright redundant as there is no real tangible linguistic divide the same way there is between a linguistic isolate and a language family proper. Lyle Campbell, professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, had famously said that he is preferring to use the terms "language family" for those classifications for which there is consensus an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 the Sahara and Sahel. Over 500 million people are native speakers of an Afroasiatic language, constituting the fourth-largest language family after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger–Congo. Most linguists divide the family into six branches: Berber (Amazigh), Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Omotic, and Semitic. The vast majority of Afroasiatic languages are considered indigenous to the African continent, including all those not belonging to the Semitic branch (which originated in West Asia). The five most spoken languages are; Arabic (of all varieties) which is by far the most widely spoken within the family, with around 411 million native speakers concentrated primarily in West Asia and North Africa, the Chadic Hausa language w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indo-European Languages
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.g., Tajikistan and Afghanistan), Armenia, and areas of southern India. Historically, Indo-European languages were also spoken in Anatolia. Some European languages of this family—English language, English, French language, French, Portuguese language, Portuguese, Russian language, Russian, Spanish language, Spanish, and Dutch language, Dutch—have expanded through colonialism in the modern period and are now spoken across several continents. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, including Albanian language, Albanian, Armenian language, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic languages, Celtic, Germanic languages, Germanic, Hellenic languages, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian, and Italic languages, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uralic Languages
The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers above 100,000 are Erzya, Moksha, Mari, Udmurt and Komi spoken in the European parts of the Russian Federation. Still smaller minority languages are Sámi languages of the northern Fennoscandia; other members of the Finnic languages, ranging from Livonian in northern Latvia to Karelian in northwesternmost Russia; the Samoyedic languages and the others of members of the Ugric languages, Mansi and Khanty spoken in Western Siberia. The name ''Uralic'' derives from the family's purported "original homeland" (''Urheimat'') hypothesized to have been somewhere in the vicinity of the Ural Mountains, and was first proposed by Julius Klaproth in ''Asia Polyglotta'' (1823). Finno-Ugric is sometimes used as a synonym for Uralic but more accu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Altaic Languages
The Altaic () languages are a group of languages comprising the Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic and Tungusic languages, Tungusic language families, with some linguists including the Koreanic languages, Koreanic and Japonic languages, Japonic families. These languages share agglutinative language, agglutinative morphology, head-final word order and some vocabulary. The once-popular theory attributing these similarities to a common ancestry has long been rejected by most Comparative linguistics, comparative linguists in favor of language contact, although it continues to be supported by a small but stable scholarly minority. Like the Uralic languages, Uralic language family, which is named after the Ural Mountains, the group is named after the Altai Mountains, Altai mountain range in the center of Asia. The core grouping of Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic is sometimes called "Micro-Altaic", with the expanded group including Koreanic and Japonic labelled as "Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 May 28, 1915, to Jewish parents in Brooklyn, New York. His first great interest was music. At the age of 14, he gave a piano concert in Steinway Hall. He continued to play the piano frequently throughout his life. After graduating from James Madison High School, he decided to pursue a scholarly career rather than a musical one. He enrolled at Columbia College in New York in 1932. During his senior year, he attended a class taught by Franz Boas concerning American Indian languages. He graduated in 1936 with a bachelor's degree. With references from Boas and Ruth Benedict, he was accepted as a graduate student by Melville J. Herskovits at Northwestern University in Chicago and graduated in 1940 with a doctorate degree. During the cours ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Bengtson
John D. Bengtson (1948-2024) was an American historical and anthropological linguist. He had been president and vice-president of the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory, and had served as editor (or co-editor) of the journal '' Mother Tongue'' (1996–2003, 2007–2024). Since 2001 he had been a member/researcher of Evolution of Human Languages, an international project on the linguistic prehistory of humanity coordinated by the Santa Fe Institute. His areas of specialization included Scandinavian languages and linguistics, Indo-European linguistics, Dené–Caucasian (Sino-Caucasian) languages, and paleolinguistics (the study of human prehistory through linguistic evidence). Publications * Bengtson, John D. 1994. (with Merritt Ruhlen) Global Etymologies. In M. Ruhlen, ''On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy''. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. * 1994. Edward Sapir and the 'Sino-Dene' Hypothesis. ''Anthropological Science'' 102.3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Near East
The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th century by modern Western geographers and was originally applied to the Ottoman Empire, but today has varying definitions within different academic circles. The term ''Near East'' was used in conjunction with the ''Middle East'' and the ''Far East'' (China and beyond), together known as the "three Easts"; it was a separate term from the ''Middle East'' during earlier times and official British usage. As of 2024, both terms are used interchangeably by politicians and news reporters to refer to the same region. ''Near East'' and ''Middle East'' are both Eurocentrism, Eurocentric terms. According to the National Geographic Society, the terms ''Near East'' and ''Middle East'' denote the same territories and are "generally accepted as comprisin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
