Talk:Amerind languages

re: support of Greenberg

Not many specialists support Greenberg. In fact, many linguists have spent considerable effort to reverse the "damage" that Greenberg has done to popular knowledge.

But, I believe that some of Greenberg's students, such as Merritt Ruhlen, are in favor with Greenberg's proposals.

Cheers! — ishwar  (SPEAK) 03:27, 2005 Apr 4 (UTC) I hardly think that a comment from Mithun is an NPOV way of describing the current consensus on mass comparison. Please see my comment in Talk:Indigenous languages of the Americas#lumpers vs. splitters. Benwing 23:30, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with both sentiments. It is true that many linguists do not support Greenberg. However, he has more support than one may think. The fact that the profession has risen up in a bizarre display of fury against Amerind is shameful and disgusting, and implies psychological defenses at work. Further, some of the world's top linguists are continuing to work on mass comparison, although not necessarily on Amerind. The notion that the only person who supports Greenberg is "one of his students", the acclaimed linguist Ruhlen, is typical of the scurrilous attacks the anti-Greenbergians deploy.

In the 20 years since publication of LIA, a number of qualified Americanists have started to dip into the Amerind pool. Many of them feel that Greenberg's thesis is warranted, at least in part, and these scholars are expanding upon Greenberg's work, in some cases even finding regular sound correspondences. The snide notion that there is "consensus" against Greenberg is yet another (sigh) example of the viciousness of the anti-Greenbergians. There is no "consensus" agreement that Greenberg is wrong, and saying so violates Wikipedia's neutrality principle.

The best analysis of the Greenberg controversy is to say that JG's proposal is still hotly debated in the profession, is wildly controversial, and is not yet proven or disproven.

I am hereby serving notice to all of the anti-Greenbergian guerrilla fighters who have invaded every Greenberg or mass comparison article Wikipedia that I am going to help mount a campaign against their insurgent project. The battle is on. Robert Lindsay 05:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC) (talk)

Battle is not a good idea. Moreover, this article needs NPOV edits. Rather than wasting your energy "battling" people whom you do not know, by all means take a few minutes to rewrite this article in something resembling encyclopedic style.

It seems clear that the article as currently written reads as a POV discussion of Greenberg and his critics, rather than talking about Amerind Languages. This is not really appropriate; if there is any place for detailed discussion of support for Joseph Greenberg's theories and critics in general terms, it would be the Joseph Greenberg article, specifically the #Languages of the Americas section, or a specialized article dealing with "lumpers" vs "splitters." I believe it is quite sufficient for this article to state that "Amerind Languages" refers to two things, namely "indigenous languages of the Americas" in generalized use and specifically to one of the three families Greenberg, who is controversial, divides the languages of the Americas into... as well as the details of the classification under question, and perhaps a mention of why it is considered controversial. As currently written, I found the Eskimo-Aleut languages and Na-Dené languages articles more informative as to precisely what Greenberg's theory actually says, with substantially less verbiage. Balancer 17:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

A major reason that the other two articles are different is that neither Eskimo-Aleut nor Na-Dene is due to Greenberg and neither is controversial, except for the inclusion of Haida in Na-Dene. Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene were proposed long before Greenberg - he had nothing to do with them other than accepting them.

User:Danny's removal of User:Robert Lindsay's rant takes care of the NPOV problem. I have added a short summary of the issues.Bill 09:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I was more thinking of the short paragraph about Greenberg's theory that's included in those two articles. Did I capture it accurately? Balancer 20:56, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, your summaries in those two articles are accurate. If I were to edit them, I think I would change "Native North America" to "the Americas", since Greenberg's classification includes all of the Americas, but that's quibble.Bill 21:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

In response to User:Benwing, I think he is confusing NPOV with "balance". The fact is that that only a tiny minority of professional historical linguists take Greenberg's work on Amerind seriously. Almost all of the people who support Amerind are either at the fringe of the field or entirely outside of it. The criticisms of LIA have mostly gone without substantive response. So, yes, Greenberg's theory should be mentioned and references given, but portraying the two sides as balanced would seriously misrepresent the state of the field, as would a balanced presentation of the idea that the earth is a sphere and the idea that it is flat. As someone in the field, who has formed a judgment on this question, Marianne Mithun is not a detached, neutral observer, but she is precisely the sort of expert whose views should be reflected in an encyclopedia: she is extremely knowledgable, she has carefully examined the arguments and the data, and she explains her judgment in a rational way. Indeed, there is very little possibility of finding a detached, neutral observer qualified to comment on the question because anybody who knows enough to have an opinion of any interest has already formed an opinion on the question.Bill 21:37, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Irrespectively of if Greenberg's comparisons are correct or not, all Amerind groups have one common origin - which was proved by genetic research. The migration wave probably wasn't only one - judging from the different distribution of female lineages in America - , but the Siberian population was the same. Hence it is highly probable that all Amerind languages also come from one root. However, as for other Greenberg's hypothesis, they often make no sense from the genetic point of view. For example, based on genetic relationships, Na-Dene languages are almost certainly related to the Altaic family, Amerind languages are related to the languages of Kets, Yukaghirs, Nivkhs and probably even Eskimos and Aleuts, the Chino-Tibetan family stems from the same root like Austroasian and Austronesian families, Japanese and Korean. Similarly, based on similar genetic origin, the Uralic family must be related to the Chukotko-Kamtchatkan family. Dravidian belongs to a wide macrofamily together with Amerind languages and Burushaski. However, problems occur, when male genetic lineages mix with female genetic lineages of other distant groups - then it is not easy to decide, if the human group preserved their language. Hence Basque may be of Cro-Magnon origin and related to Amerind languages - but also of Middle Eastern origin. 82.100.61.114 08:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

That is pure original research and as such useless for Wikipedia. Moreover, your comments are confused: linguistic classifications can only be based on linguistic evidence, it is a category mistake to base them on genetic evidence. For example: speakers of Finnish are genetically more closely related to speakers of Swedish than they are to Saami people. However, Finnish and Saami are related whereas Finnish and Swedish are not. This already suffices to show that it is methodologically absolutely invalid to derive linguistic claims from genetic data. --AAikio 12:14, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

He makes many mistakes, however there is still one valid point. If most of the people of the Americas date to immigration from Siberia 12000 years ago then to reject any kind of higher level relationships is to say that 100 different language families arose independently in the last 12000 years which is clear rubbish (and yet is believed by many people), best to say there's insufficient evidence to conclusively prove a link and that the exact membership of higher level groups is disputed. Also depends on what country you're talking about as extreme conservatism tends to be common in English speaking countries and yet Russian linguists are far more likely to accept higher level groupings.86.152.221.121 (talk) 10:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Huh? Nobody claims that "100 different language families arose independently in the last 12000 years", and I don't think many linguists believe that, but any higher-level connections are, as you say, too remote to reconstruct. (Of course, we don't really know how many different languages were brought to the Americas by various waves of immigration, whose mere number is completely unknown; and even the assumption that humans have spoken languages along modern lines, who developped along modern lines in ways reconstructible by the comparative method in principle, for tens of thousands of years back into the past – the unspoken assumption behind monogenesis – is dubious.)

The conservatism of American linguists is warranted: Unproved links between accepted language families are mere hypotheses, and not particularly useful by themselves except perhaps as a starting point for further research, including research on areal connections and language contact. Russian linguists are building castles in the clouds. What does one win by accepting a random proposal of many conflicting ones? Very little, if anything. At worst, in one's frantic search for long-range connections, one loses sight of more regionally limited processes and patterns. "Amerind languages" is an intellectually vacuous proposal, and the exclusion of Na-Dené and Eskimo–Aleut seems arbitrary, without actual basis in linguistic data.

Robert Lindsay's point that Amerind and similar groupings are "not disproved" is besides the point, as such groupings can never be strictly disproved. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:32, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Article reference list

Incidentally, is it just me, or does the reference list seem rather long in relation to the article content, compared to other articles here? Balancer 08:23, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is unusually long. I'm probably mainly responsible for that. The reasons are that I wanted to include a reasonable range of the critical literature (there's more) without seeming unfair and removing the pro-Amerind references, and that I wanted to include both work specifically on the Amerind question and some more general background on the methodological issues.

The reason for the latter is that the article on mass lexical comparison is not very good and has no references. What I think needs to be done (and have a mind to do) is to improve that article and add references to it. Ringe (1992) at least could then be eliminated from this article since it is a general methodological reference, not specifically about Amerind. Ditto Ringe (1993), I think, though I'd have to check to be sure it doesn't discuss Amerind. The Sturtevant reference is not necessary - that's a wonderful set of volumes, but not specifically related to this article.Bill 21:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes

Please, make footnotes (Inline citations) in order that the readers can verify the information. Otherwise this may well look as a presentation of the editor's/s' opinions rather than of facts.--Pet'usek ^{[petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom]} 14:49, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

More Information

More pieces of information should be included in the article, such as:

• Other people's contributions to the subject (such Merritt Ruhlen's Amerind Etymological Dictionary), as well as reviews thereof.
• Internal classification (according to Greenberg/Ruhlen)
• The evidence (real or alleged, but certainly commented) in favour of the hypothesis (and why that evidence is/isn't valid).

It doesn't matter whether Greenberg/Ruhlen's classification is valid or not. It should be a part of the description of the hypothesis. It is not enough to say that Amerind is a controversial family proposed by Greenberg and consisting of all language families in Americas but Na-Dené/Haida and Eskimo-Aleut. Being a reader of Wikipedia, I'd like to know why Greenberg thought the family existed.--Pet'usek ^{[petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom]} 14:24, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

reverting to less POV version

look at the history and you'll see that the (formerly) current highly POV version was due to a single user, Billposer. the previous version is shorter and much more objective. none of the added stuff by Billposer is relevant -- it's a lot of unsourced, disputed criticisms, and all relevant criticisms are already contained in the mass lexical comparison page. Benwing (talk) 03:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Given that Bill Poser actually has expert knowledge of the languages in the Amerind family, I think it's very unfortunate that you felt justified in deleting his contributions as not 'objective'. Unless you have any citations to prove that the acceptance of Amerind is greater than Bill said it is, I would advocate putting Bill's edits back in. Anon., June 5, 2008.

That sounds as if Bill Poser were an expert in ALL of the languages grouped under Amerind. I doubt that. Certainly, the hypothesis is CONTROVERSIAL. It should be said why it is controversial, bbut we are here not to judge it. Only time and the linguistic community can do so. We need to cite both - those who agree with Amerind and those who don't. We need to say why there are still people who advocate it. And, which is important, we should reralize this is an article ABOUT Amerind, not AGAINST Amerind! Wikipedia is NOT an Encyclopaedia of critics and critiques, is it? If you say A, you should say B. Let me summarize that:

--Pet'usek ^{[petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom]} 10:33, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

You are partly right Petusek - but you forget one point. Currently the scientific consensus is not only against the validity of Amerind, it is very much against it. Wikipedia needs to show unequivocally that this is not a proposal that is believed by the general scientific community - not doing this would be giving undue weight to a fringe viewpoint (and yes Amerind apologetics are a fringe minority of the linguistic community, this is undisputable).·Maunus·ƛ· 10:46, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I would not dispute the theory is controversial. I only demand more precise information - who claims what and why. That's all. This looks as if the arguments were taken out of thin air - both for and against Amerind. The article mentions few arguments. I'd like to list a few requests in the to-do box. If we say it is a fringe theory, why could we not use the inline citations to sources that document this? That's all I want, in fact. And I repeat: there is nothing about why Amerind was postulated, what lead to it: the pronoun pattern (which is considered less wide-spread now), the assumed boy/girld/child isogloss (be it highly disputed). You know, the article gives very little information on the actual Amerind hypothesis.--Pet'usek ^{[petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom]} 11:22, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

One more thing. Amerind, as far as I know, is a higher-order grouping. It is not on the same level as Na-Dene or Eskimo-Aleut, thus the first sentence of the article is, at least, inaccurate. In fact, Amerind would not contradict the current division into many smaller families, as the hypothesis attempts at seeking bigger time-depth relationships. Whether successfully or not, that is another question. Simply, something has to be said about the theory. Why it has its followers and why the majority of linguists disagree with it, uhm? --Pet'usek ^{[petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom]} 11:28, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I for one have no problem with this, as long as undue weight is not given to a favourable view of the hypothesis.·Maunus·ƛ· 12:15, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Good. I think we might use something from here. It is quite brief and if we add the inline citations (e.g. with the linguits claiming that the m/t pattern can be attributed to other than genetic sources), it will be fine, I guess.--Pet'usek ^{[petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom]} 12:28, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Good. Mr. Poser seems to have put the references where they belong. Still, some more information could be added, including a few references.--Pet'usek ^{[petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom]} 07:05, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Please, see the to-do box. I have made some changes. Let's discuss them here. Any information to be added, corrected, explained in a more detail? I think there should be a discussion in the text as to whether the main arguments for Amerind are valid or not, and why, uhm? At least, a link to the relevant articles should be made.--Pet'usek ^{[petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom]} 08:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Classification of the languages

It seems to me it would appropriate to put the hypothetical classification of this hypothetical phylum, with links to the pages for each family, where they are there. I will begin working on this.

The classification, per "A Guide to the World's Languages Vol. 1" (Merrit Ruhlen, 1987) is as follows:

1. Northern Amerind 1.1 Almosan-Kersiouan 1.2 Penutian 1.3 Hokan 2. Central Amerind 2.1 Tanoan 2.2 Uto-Aztecan 2.3 Oto-Manguean 3. Chibchan-Paezan 3.1 Chibchan 3.2 Paezan 4. Andean 5. Equatorial-Tucanoan 5.1 Macro-Tucanoan 5.2 Equatorial 6. Ge-Pano-Carib 6.1 Macro-Carib 6.2 Ge-Pano 6.21 Macro-Panoan 6.22 Macro-Ge.

As I said, I will start working on this, and try to make sure I include as many of the latest research as I can find, with appropriate footnotes, etc. But I wanted to post a heads-up on the discussion page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Listmeister (talk • contribs) 20:04, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

DONE. March 29, 2010. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Listmeister (talk • contribs) 15:41, 29 March 2010 (UTC)