| Amerind | |
|---|---|
| (controversial) | |
| Geographic distribution: |
New World |
| Linguistic classification: | Amerind–Nostratic
|
| Subdivisions: |
Almosan–Keresiouan
Hokan–Penutian
Central Amerind
Andean–Chibchan–Paezan
Equatorial–Tucanoan
Ge–Pano–Carib
|
Amerind is a higher-level language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg in 1960. Greenberg proposed that all of the indigenous languages of the Americas belong to one of three language families, the previously established Eskimo–Aleut and Na–Dene, and with everything else—almost universally believed to belong to dozens of independent families—as Amerind. Due to a large number of methodological flaws in the analysis he published 27 years later in his book Language in the Americas, the relationships he proposed between these languages have been roundly rejected by the large majority of historical linguists.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]
The term Amerind is also occasionally used to refer broadly to the various indigenous languages of the Americas without necessarily implying that they are a genealogical group. To avoid ambiguity, the term Amerindian is often used for the latter meaning.
Contents |
The idea that all the languages of the Americas are related goes back to the 19th century when early linguists such as Peter Stephen DuPonceau and Wilhelm von Humboldt noticed that the languages of the Americas seemed to be very different from the better known European languages, yet seemingly also quite similar to each other. When studies of American Indian languages began in earnest in the early 20th century linguists quickly realized that the indigenous languages were in fact not all that similar, but had a diversity much greater than among the languages of Europe. After a period of uncertainty about whether indigenous languages could be described and investigated by the methods applied to European languages the first linguists began the daunting task of trying to classify the languages of the Americas by using the comparative method.
Among the most prolific and gifted linguists of his times was Edward Sapir, who was among the first to apply the comparative method to native American languages. However, contrary to current practice in historical linguistics Sapir also often relied on "hunches" and "gut feeling" when proposing new linguistic groupings. Some of these suggestions have been proven correct while others have not. Sapir entertained the idea that ultimately all languages of the Americas might turn out to be provably related and such a phenomenon as the apparent Pan-American tendency to have first person forms with a prefixed n- was suggestive for this line of thought.
Since Sapir's death in 1939 linguists have spent their time researching his proposals, and generally there have been two opposing camps in this endeavour: the so-called "lumpers" who are generally favorably inclined towards notions of genetic relationships, and the "splitters" who are generally critical of such proposals expecting successful family relations to be proven by the most rigorous standards of scholarship. Joseph Greenberg worked in the tradition of "lumpers" and following Sapir he accepted kinds of evidence that are not generally acceptable to those who hold that only the most rigorous application of the comparative method can yield reliable proof of genetic relationships between languages. In elaborating his classification of the Amerind languages Greenberg relied heavily on Sapir's early work on the North American languages and the highly impressionist classification of South American languages by Paul Rivet.
The main argument for the genetic unity of most native American languages is an observed pronominal pattern in many native American languages that have first person forms with n- and second person forms with m-. This pattern was first noted by Alfredo Trombetti in 1905. This pattern was also noted by Sapir which caused him to suggest that ultimately all native American languages would turn out to be related. In a personal letter to A. L. Kroeber he wrote (Sapir 1918):[13]
| “ | Getting down to brass tacks, how in the Hell are you going to explain general American n- 'I' except genetically? It's disturbing, I know, but (more) non-committal conservatism is only dodging, after all, isn't it? Great simplifications are in store for us. | ” |
The supposed "n/m – I/you" pattern among Native American languages has attracted attention even from those linguists who are normally critical of such proposals. Johanna Nichols has investigated the distribution of the languages that have the n/m contrast and found that they are mostly confined to the western coast of the Americas, and that similarly they exist in East Asia and Oceania. This caused her to suggest that they had spread through diffusion.[14] This notion was rejected by Lyle Campbell who argued that in fact the n/m pattern was not statistically significant in either area compared to the rest of the world. Campbell also showed that several of the languages that had the contrast today had not had it historically and that largely the pattern was consistent with chance resemblances, especially when taking into consideration the statistic prevalence of nasal consonants in all the pronominal systems of the world.[1]
Below is a selection of singular Amerind pronouns from various languages, each of which are from separate well-attested families.[15][16]
| Language | Family | I | you | he |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nahuatl[17] | Uto-Aztecan | no- | mo- | i- |
| Kiliwa[18] | Yuman | ñap | may | ñipáa |
| Karok | (isolate) | na | 'im | 'um |
| Quechua | Quechuan | ñuqa | qam | pay |
| Aymara | Aymaran | naya | juma | jupa |
| Mapudungun[19] | (isolate) | iñche | eymi | fey |
| Wichí[20] | Matacoan | n’lham | am | lham |
| Yine | Maipurean | -no | pɨ- | wal'a |
| Hup[21] | Makú | 'ãh | 'ám | tɨ́h |
| Muisca | Chibchan | hycha | mue | asy |
| Toba | Guaicuruan | ayim | 'am | -maji |
| Siona | Tucanoan | yɨ'ɨ | mɨ̃'ɨ̃ | p'ak'o |
| Chácobo | Panoan | ɨa | mi-a | ha-a |
| Tacana | Tacanan | yama | miada | toaweda |
| Selknam | Chon | y-ah | m-ah | — |
| Yanomami | Yanomaman | ya | wa | a |
The 1960 proposal, in its outlines, was as follows:
This is the current state of Amerindian classification, as given in An Amerind Etymological Dictionary, by Joseph Greenberg and Merritt Ruhlen, Stanford University, 2007.
The Amerind hypothesis has been generally rejected as unfounded in scientific method by historical linguists, especially by those specializing in the languages of the Americas,[1][10][22] particularly because the basis for the proposal is mass comparison, but also because of many other methodological flaws made by Greenberg in the elaboration of the hypothesis.[6][12][23][24][25][26] Critics regard this technique as fundamentally flawed, unable to distinguish chance resemblances from those due to a historical relationship among the languages and providing no means of distinguishing resemblances due to common descent from those due to language contact. Many historical and/or Americanist linguists do not believe that it is possible to find relationships or make linguistic reconstructions as far back in time as the Amerind hypothesis would require.
In addition, critics have pointed out errors in the citation of data, including erroneous forms, erroneous glosses, unjustified morphological segmentation, attribution to the wrong language, and citation of entirely spurious forms.[3][4][5][6][9][11][12][23]
A further criticism is that, contrary to normal scholarly practice, no source references are given for the data, which in most cases come from languages for which there is no standard, authoritative source. In addition, Greenberg does not normalize the spelling of the data, so it is impossible without knowing the source of each form to know what the notation actually represents.[11][23]
While sympathetic to the idea of an Amerind language family, Morris Swadesh was critical of many of Greenberg's subdivisions and believed it was due to an insufficient number of comparisons by Greenberg.[1]
Certain groups of linguists working with mass lexical comparison and long-range genetic relationships have continued to defend Greenberg's hypothesis. The most vociferous of these is Merritt Ruhlen who has tried to amass more evidence for the hypothesis.[27][28][29][30] He thus also objects to the notion that there are over 200 families among which there is no evidence of genetic affinity.[1] He suggests that there is evidence for a three-way i / u / a (i.e. masculine / feminine / neutral) ablaut in such forms as t'ina / t'una / t'ana ("son / daughter / child").
More recently it has been suggested that the Almosan languages represent a separate group to the other Amerind languages and a relationship with the Nivkh language and the substratum of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages in a Beringian language group has been suggested. [2] Another suggestion would link the Almosan languages with Dene–Caucasian.[31][32][33] However, migrations occurred both ways across the Bering Strait and it is less clear which direction these languages migrated if related.
Some recent research would suggest that many of the languages of the Americas are related, but not all of them. Languages that seem to be unrelated to the Amerind languages (and perhaps therefore predate them) include the Gulf languages, the Keresan languages, the Siouan languages and the Otomanguean languages[3]. However, Kaufman has proposed a relationship between Otomanguean and Hokan [4] and all these languages were considered related to Hokan by Swadesh [5] and Sapir.
It has also been suggested that the Fuegian languages of Southern South America represent remnants of earlier languages [6]. Nevertheless the Chon languages have been suggested to be Macro-Panoan languages and if this turns out to be justified this would leave just the Kawesqar language, the Yaghan language and the extinct Chono language with no proven connections either to languages outside the region or even to each other.