Nostratic languages, Nostratic languages - Criticism, Nostratic languages - Example of Nostratic Technique, Nostratic languages - History: Indo-European to Nostratic, Eurasiatic languages, Indo-Uralic languages, universal grammar
ARTICLES RELATED TO Nostratic languages - Criticism
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
