Amerind languages

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Amerind is one of the three families in Joseph Greenberg's controversial classification of all Native American languages, obtained by his mass lexical comparison method — the other two being Na-Dené and Eskimo-Aleut. His classification was laid out in a controversial book published in 1987, Language in the Americas.

Many linguists supposedly consider consider the method unreliable, and reject the Amerind family as unsupported, classifying these languages instead into many smaller families. On the other hand, Greenberg's mass lexical comparison method was already successfully by used him to classify the vast number of languages in Africa into only four major families. Greenberg's African classification was also ferociously attacked at the time it was published, but further research since then has shown that Greenberg was essentially correct in most aspects of his classification.

Furthermore, Greenberg's critics are dishonest. The relatedness of any set of languages has only ever been proven by lexical comparison, mass or otherwise. The technique of recontruction, flaunted by Greenberg's critics as the normal way to prove language genetics, has never done any such thing. Reconstruction has only been useful for reconstucting proto-languages since lost in time, not for language genetics.

A number of linguists worldwide are supporters of Greenberg, although they are a minority. Greenberg's supporters argue that much of the rage directed towards Greenberg is emotional and unprofessional, and smacks of psychological defenses. The Greenbergians argue that many linguists have staked their careers on various language classifications and are especially invested in the notion that their language or language family is somehow unique and not related to other languages. Greenberg comes along and upsets their apple cart of decades worth of an academic career and they react with rage.

Merritt Ruhlen at Stanford University has worked alongside Greenberg and has helped to popularize his radical theories in popular books and articles.

The controversy over Greenberg's work is best regarded as unsettled, and the typical portrayal that the field of Linguistics is rising in fury over Greenberg's "nonsense" is both overdrawn and false. For instance, Edward Sapir, one of the most famous linguists of all time, proposed that most of the Amerindian languages were related in 1917. Between 1917 and 1987, quite a few of the world's most prominent linguists, including Morris Swadesh, dipped into the same contoversial waters of deep relationships amongst the world's languages. These articles and books, often published in peer reviewed journals, were met with a yawn by a disinterested Linguistics profession.

Then Greenberg's book appeared, mining the same ore as previous works, and the field erupted into an emotional explosion. The emotional and enraged nature of much of the reaction to Greenberg's work implies that there is something more going on here than a simple scholarly disagreement. Further evidence that the field is anything but united against Greenberg's theories are the increasing number of linguists who are digging deeper into Greenberg's work and expanding upon it.

The term is also occasionally used to refer (broadly) to the various indigenous languages of the Americas.

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References

  • Adelaar, Willem F. H. (1989). [Review of Greenberg, Language in the Americas]. Lingua, 78, 249-255.
  • Berman, Howard. (1992). A comment on the Yurok and Kalapuya data in Greenberg's Language in the Americas. International Journal of American Linguistics, 58 (2), 230-233.
  • Bonnichsen, Robson; & Steele, D. Gentry (Eds.). (1994). Method and theory for investigating the peopling of the Americas. Peopling of the Americas publications. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University, Center for the Study of the First Americans. ISBN 0-9129-3309-7.
  • Campbell, Lyle. (1988). [Review of Language in the Americas, Greenberg 1987]. Language, 64, 591-615.
  • Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
  • Chafe, Wallace. (1987). [Review of Greenberg 1987]. Current Anthropology, 28, 652-653.
  • Goddard, Ives. (1987). [Review of Joseph Greenberg, Language in the Americas]. Current Anthropology, 28, 656-657.
  • Goddard, Ives. (1990). [Review of Language in the Americas by Joseph H. Greenberg]. Linguistics, 28, 556-558.
  • Goddard, Ives. (1996). The classification of native languages of North America. In I. Goddard (Ed.), Languages (pp. 290-323). Handbook of North Americans Indians (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution.
  • Goddard, Ives (Ed.). (1996). Languages. Handbook of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-1604-8774-9.
  • Goddard, Ives; & Campbell, Lyle. (1994). The history and classification of American Indian languages: What are the implications for the peopling of the Americas?. In R. Bonnichsen & D. Steele (Eds.), Method and theory for investigating the peopling of the Americas (pp. 189-207). Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University.
  • Golla, Victor. (1987). [Review of Joseph H. Greenberg: Language in the Americas]. Current Anthropology, 28, 657-659.
  • Golla, Victor. (1988). [Review of Language in the Americas, by Joseph Greenberg]. American Anthropologist, 90, 434-435.
  • Greenberg, Joseph H. (1960). General classification of Central and South American languages. In A. Wallace (Ed.), Men and cultures: Fifth international congress of anthropological and ethnological sciences (1956) (pp. 791-794). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). Language in the Americas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
  • Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). Language in the Americas: Author's précis. Current Anthropology, 28, 647-652.
  • Greenberg, Joseph H. (1989). Classification of American Indian languages: A reply to Campbell. Language, 65, 107-114.
  • Greenberg, Joseph H. (1996). In defense of Amerind. International Journal of American Linguistics, 62, 131-164.
  • Kimball, Geoffrey. (1992). A critique of Muskogean, 'Gulf,' and Yukian materials in Language in the Americas. International Journal of American Linguistics, 58, 447-501.
  • Matisoff, James. (1990). On megalo-comparison: A discussion note. Language, 66, 106-120.
  • Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
  • Poser, William J. (1992). The Salinan and Yurumanguí data in Language in the Americas. International Journal of American Linguistics, 58 (2), 202-229.
  • Rankin, Robert. (1992). [Review of Language in the Americas by J. H. Greenberg]. International Journal of American Linguistics, 58 (3), 324-351.
  • Ringe, Donald. (1992). On calculating the factor of chance in language comparison. American Philosophical Society, Transactions, 82 (1), 1-110.
  • Ringe, Donald. (1993). A reply to Professor Greenberg. American Philosophical Society, Proceedings, 137, 91-109.
  • Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978-present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1-20). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1-3, 16, 18-20 not yet published).de:Amerindische Sprachen

sk:Amerindiánske jazyky

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