Nostratic languages

Nostratic is a highly controversial language "super-family" that suggests links between many Eurasian language families.

Related Topics:
Super-family - Eurasia - Language families

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The precise nature of the links has been the subject of debate, however, as proponents have not agreed on the set of families to include. Some of the proposed groupings are:

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• Indo-European, Uralic (or Ural-Yukaghir), Altaic (or Mongolian, Tungusic, Turkic, sometimes Korean, Japonic)
• sometimes Chukchi-Kamchatkan, Nivkh (AKA Gilyak), Eskaleut, Dravidian (or Elamo-Dravidian), South Caucasian (Kartvelian), Sumerian, Afro-Asiatic

In some respects, however, the situation is not too dissimilar to what occurred within Indo-European studies in the early stages of research. At first, the Celtic languages were not definitely identified as part of the Indo-European language family, while Armenian was not added until the 1880s (until then, it had been thought to be an aberrant dialect of Iranian), and Lycian and Lydian were not definitively recognized as Indo-European languages until the middle of the twentieth century. Even today, there are uncertainties about the subgrouping of the Finno-Ugric languages, not to mention Afro-Asiatic.

Related Topics:
Celtic language - Armenian - 1880s - Finno-Ugric

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Joseph Greenberg proposed a similar or overlapping macrofamily he called Eurasiatic, and linked it to the Amerind languages of the Americas. The American Nostraticist Allan R. Bomhard considers Eurasiatic to be a branch of Nostratic, other branches being Afro-Asiatic, Elamo-Dravidian, and South Caucasian (Kartvelian).

Related Topics:
Joseph Greenberg - Eurasiatic - Amerind languages - Allan R. Bomhard

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Nostratic languages: History: Indo-European to Nostratic ►