Eurasiatic languages

As laid out by Greenberg (2000:279-81), the branches of Eurasiatic are: Etruscan Indo-European Uralic-Yukaghir Altaic Korean-Japanese-Ainu Gilyak Chukotian Eskimo-Aleut Etruscan was spoken in Tuscany and nearby areas of Italy up to the first century A.D. It may have been brought to Italy by emigrants from Anatolia. Indo-European is the hypothetical common anc ...

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Eurasiatic languages, Eurasiatic languages - The branches of Eurasiatic, Eurasiatic languages - Relation to other language families, Eurasiatic languages - Prospects for the Eurasiatic hypothesis

Read more here: » Eurasiatic languages: Encyclopedia II - Eurasiatic languages - The branches of Eurasiatic

Uralo-Siberian is a hypothetical language family consisting of the following language families: Uralic Yukaghir Chukotko-Kamchatkan Eskimo-Aleut Uralo-Siberian languages - History. Structural similarities between Uralic and Eskimo-Aleut languages were observed early. In 1746, the Danish theologian Marcus Wöldike compared Greenlandic to Hungarian. In 1818, Rasmus Rask considered Greenlandic to be related to the Uralic languages, and presented a list of lexical ...

Including:

• Uralo-Siberian languages - History
• Uralo-Siberian languages - Evidence
• Uralo-Siberian languages - Phonology
• Uralo-Siberian languages - Morphology
• Uralo-Siberian languages - Lexicon
• Uralo-Siberian languages - Sources

Read more here: » Uralo-Siberian languages: Encyclopedia - Uralo-Siberian languages

The concept of the Nostratic languages is best understood in the context of the discovery, methods of investigation, and application of the Indo-European family of languages. When Sir William Jones first suggested the Indo-European hypothesis, he backed up his idea with a systematic examination of what might be termed "phono-semantic sets" -- words which, in different languages, had both similar sounds and meanings. Jones essentially argued that there were too many of these sets for their existence to be mere coincidence, laying particular e ...

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Nostratic languages, Nostratic languages - History: Indo-European to Nostratic, Nostratic languages - Criticism, Nostratic languages - Example of Nostratic Technique

Read more here: » Nostratic languages: Encyclopedia II - Nostratic languages - History: Indo-European to Nostratic

Uralo-Siberian languages - Phonology. The consonant inventories of the reconstructed protolanguages of the four Uralo-Siberian families are very similar to each other. A common feature is that there are only voiceless and no voiced stops, while there is a set of voiced (but no voiceless) non-sibilant fricatives with the same places of articulation (labial, dental, palatal and velar; in Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut, also uvular). There are also nasals in the same places of articulation. In addition, there are three sibilants, and liquids and semivowels. See also:

Uralo-Siberian languages, Uralo-Siberian languages - History, Uralo-Siberian languages - Evidence, Uralo-Siberian languages - Phonology, Uralo-Siberian languages - Morphology, Uralo-Siberian languages - Lexicon, Uralo-Siberian languages - Sources

Read more here: » Uralo-Siberian languages: Encyclopedia II - Uralo-Siberian languages - Evidence

An example of the techniques used by supporters of Nostratic is given by a passage from 'The Nostratic Macrofamily, a Study in Distant Linguistic Relationship', by Allan R. Bomhard and John C. Kerns. New York, Mouton de Gruyter, 1994. Page 219: Proto-Nostratic *bar-/*ber- 'seed, grain': Proto-Indo-European *bhars- 'grain': Latin far 'spelt, grain'; Old Icelandic barr 'barley'; Old English bere 'barley'; Old Church Slavonic brasheno 'food'. Pokorny 1959:111 ...

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Nostratic languages, Nostratic languages - History: Indo-European to Nostratic, Nostratic languages - Criticism, Nostratic languages - Example of Nostratic Technique

Read more here: » Nostratic languages: Encyclopedia II - Nostratic languages - Example of Nostratic Technique

Almost all modern linguists are, at best, highly skeptical of the facts put forward to show that the language families under the Nostratic umbrella are, in fact, related. The main criticism of Nostratic is that the methodology used leads people to see patterns that are the result of coincidence. In reconstructing Nostratic, supporters do not use the techniques that linguists have established to prevent false positives, such as ...

See also:

Nostratic languages, Nostratic languages - History: Indo-European to Nostratic, Nostratic languages - Criticism, Nostratic languages - Example of Nostratic Technique

Read more here: » Nostratic languages: Encyclopedia II - Nostratic languages - Criticism

Excluding territories of north-central Kazakhstan, Siberia thus has a total population of ca. 41.7 million. Not counting the districts east of Sakha yields a total of 35.6 million. The North Kazakhstan oblast has another 1.1 million inhabitants (2002). About 70% of Siberia's people live in cities. Most city people are crowded into small apartments. Many people in rural areas live in simple, but more spacious, log houses. Novosibirsk is the largest city in Siberia, with a population of about 1.5 million, followed by Yekaterinburg (1.3 ...

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Demographics of Siberia, Demographics of Siberia - Population, Demographics of Siberia - Ethnicities and languages

Read more here: » Demographics of Siberia: Encyclopedia II - Demographics of Siberia - Population

Most Siberians (close to the average measured over all of Russia of 79%) are Russians and Russified Ukrainians, but in certain Oblasts (e.g. Tuva), Slavic population is as low as 20%. Most non-Slavic groups are Turkic. Smaller linguistic groups are Mongols (ca. 600,000 speakers) Uralic (Samoyedic, Ugric, Yukaghir; roughly 100,000 speakers), Manchu-Tungus (ca. 40,000 speakers), Chukotko-Kamchatkan (ca. 25,000 speakers), Eskim ...

See also:

Demographics of Siberia, Demographics of Siberia - Population, Demographics of Siberia - Ethnicities and languages

Read more here: » Demographics of Siberia: Encyclopedia II - Demographics of Siberia - Ethnicities and languages

The principal objection to theories like Greenberg's is that contact between populations often results in exchange of words, so similarities in vocabulary and even in grammatical structure do not necessarily indicate a common origin. For instance, English contains many French words and Persian contains many Turkish and Arabic words. Nevertheless it remains true to say that English is a descendant of Proto-Germanic and Persian is a descendant of Old Persian. Whether similarities between two languages are due to common ancestry or to linguisti ...

See also:

Eurasiatic languages, Eurasiatic languages - The branches of Eurasiatic, Eurasiatic languages - Relation to other language families, Eurasiatic languages - Prospects for the Eurasiatic hypothesis

Read more here: » Eurasiatic languages: Encyclopedia II - Eurasiatic languages - Prospects for the Eurasiatic hypothesis