Pseudoscientific language comparison
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Pseudoscientific language comparison is a form of pseudoscience that seeks to establish historical connections between languages by pointing out similarities between them. While comparative linguistics also studies the historical relationships of languages, linguistic comparisons are considered pseudoscientific by linguists when they are not based on the established practices of comparative linguistics as well as the more general principles of the scientific method. Pseudoscientific language comparison is usually carried out by persons with little or no specialization in the field of comparative linguistics. It is by far the most widespread type of linguistic pseudoscience.[citation needed]
The most common method applied in pseudoscientific language comparisons is to search two or more languages for words that seem similar in their sound and meaning. While similarities of this kind often seem convincing to laypersons, linguistic scientists consider this kind of comparison to be unreliable for two primary reasons. First, the method applied is not well-defined: the criterion of similarity is subjective and thus not subject to verification or falsification, which is contrary to the principles of the scientific method. Second, the large size of all languages’ vocabulary makes it easy to find accidentally similar words between languages.
Because of its unreliability, the method of searching for isolated similarities is rejected by nearly all comparative linguists (but cf. mass lexical comparison, a highly controversial method that operates on similarity). Instead of isolated similarities, comparative linguists use a technique called the comparative method to search for regular (i.e. recurring) correspondences between the languages’ phonology, grammar and core vocabulary in order to test hypotheses of relatedness.
Certain types of languages seem to attract far more attention in pseudoscientific comparisons than others. These include languages of ancient civilizations such as Egyptian, Etruscan or Sumerian, and language isolates or near-isolates such as Basque, Japanese and Ainu, and languages that are unrelated to their geographical neighbors such as Hungarian. Furthermore, there may be political reasons to connect languages. An example is the Turanian or Ural-Altaic language group, which had a motivation of connecting Sami (spoken by white people) to Mongolian. This justified explicit racism towards the Sami in particular.[1]. Another reason may be religion. For example believers in Abrahamic religions may try to derive their native languages from Classical Hebrew, as Herbert W. Armstrong who said that the word 'British' comes from Hebrew Brit meaning 'covenant' and ish meaning 'man', supposedly proving that the British people are the 'covenant people' of God.
There is no universal way to identify pseudoscientific language comparisons; indeed, it is not clear that all pseudoscientific language comparisons form a single group. However, the following characteristics tend to be more common among pseudoscientific theories (and their advocates) than among scientific ones:
- Failure to apply an accepted method in order to demonstrate regular correspondences between the languages (see above).
- Failure to present grammatical evidence for relatedness: claims are based exclusively on word comparisons, even though in comparative linguistics also grammatical evidence is required to confirm relatedness.
- Arbitrary segmentation of compared forms: comparisons are based on the similarity of only a part of the words compared (usually the first syllable), whereas the rest of the word is ignored.
- Disregard for the effects of morphology on word structure: uninflected root forms may be compared with fully inflected forms, or marked forms may be used in preference to lesser- or unmarked forms.
- Failure to consider the possibility of borrowing. Neighboring languages may share much vocabulary and many grammatical features due to language contact, and adequate application of the comparative method is required to determine whether the similarities result from contact or from relatedness.
- Relying on typological similarities between languages: the morphological type of the language is claimed to provide evidence for relatedness, but in comparative linguistics only material parallels are accepted as evidence of a historical connection.
- Neglect of known history: present-day forms of words are used in comparisons, neglecting either the attested or the reconstructed history of the language in question.
- Ignoring established results in favor of new, speculative hypotheses. For example, words already identified as loanwords are used to support remote linguistic connections.
- Advocation of geographically far-fetched connections, such as comparing Finnish (in Finland) to Quechua (in Peru), or Basque (in Spain and France) to Ainu (in Japan). This criterion is only suggestive, though, as a long distance does not exclude the possibility of a relationship: English is demonstrably related to Hindi (in India), and Hawaiian to Malagasy (on Madagascar).
- Advocation of fanciful historical scenarios on the basis of the purported linguistic findings, e.g. claims of unknown civilizations or ancient migrations across oceans.
- Claims that the purported remote linguistic relationship is obvious and easy to perceive. A distant relationship between languages is usually not obvious on a superficial examination, and can only be uncovered via a successful application of the comparative method.
- Failure to submit results to peer reviewed linguistic journals.
- Assertion that criticism towards the theory is motivated by traditionalism, ideological factors or conspiracy on behalf of the linguistic community.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
Campbell, Lyle (1998). Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-53159-3.
Trask, R. L. (1996). Historical Linguistics. London: Arnold. ISBN 0-340-60758-0.
