Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 1, Grammar

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The basic thesis of this book is that the well known and extensively studied Indo-European family of languages is but a branch of a much larger Eurasiatic family that extends from northern Asia to North America. Eurasiatic is seen to consist of Indo-European, Uralic-Yukaghir, Altaic (Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungus-Manchu), Japanese-Korean-Ainu (possibly a distinct subgroup of Eurasiatic), Gilyak, Chuckchi-Kamchatkan, and Eskimo-Aleut. The author asserts that the evidence for the validity of Eurasiatic as a single linguistic family, including the vocabulary evidence to be presented in Volume II on semantics, confirms his hypothesis since the numerous and interlocking resemblances he finds among the various subgroups can only reasonably be explained by descent from a common ancestor.

The evidence in this volume deals in great detail with the distribution of 72 grammatical elements and the forms they take in the various Eurasiatic languages. The book also contains a historical introduction and a discussion of certain phonological phenomena. Of these phenomena, the most important is the vocal-harmony system found in many of these languages that is the ancestor of the so-called Ablaut variations of vowels in Indo-European, still seen in English in such contrasts as � come ��/ � came.� � The origin and earliest form of this system have long been a puzzle to Indo-Europeanists, but in this work they are shown to be the outcome of this original system.

An appendix deals with the vowel variation of Ainu, which resembles that of other languages in Eurasiatic. The origin of the Ainu has hitherto been considered a great mystery, and this volume shows a north Asian origin, not, as some have thought, one in Southeast Asia or the Pacific. The book also includes a Classification of Eurasiatic Languages and an Index of the Etymologies.

Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 1, Grammar Review

This is no more a book for the casual reader than is Newton's _Principia_; but, like the _Principia_, it leaves its subject transformed forever. Greenberg argues that the Indo-European language family should be seen as part of a superfamily that also includes the Uralic, Altaic, Yukaghir, Gilyak, and Chukotian families; Korean, Japanese, and Ainu (seen as distantly related members of a single family); and the Eskimo-Aleut languages, another family. Plus Etruscan. This volume concentrates on "grammar"--mostly pronouns, suffixes and prefixes with grammatical functions, and other formatives; a second volume on vocabulary is planned.Greenberg's methodology, focusing on the assessment of degrees of probable relationship rather than the quasi-mathematical demonstration of relationship via laws of sound change, is controversial. Yet he makes a strong case supporting the claim that the patterns he demonstrates are stronger than any of their individual data points. Even a small subset of the evidence he presents (for example, the material on first- and second-person pronouns and verb endings) is hard to account for except by genetic relationship of the languages involved.A virtue of the book is the testability of the relationships he alleges: it opens the way for further study which can strengthen or weaken his case.It is hard to imagine that a common ancestor for Finnish, Sanskrit, Japanese, and the Eskimo languages--and most of the languages in between--could be more recent than the last ice age. I find it wonderful that elements of English that we use every day, in almost every sentence--the "m" of "am" and "me," the "g" of "ego" (buried just under the surface of "I"), the "th" of "the" (transformed from an earlier "t"), and the"sc" of "crescent" and "fluorescent"--could be shared across the whole northern cap of the planet, passed down to us from linguistic ancestors who witnessed perhaps ten thousand years of history.Perhaps the most provocative element of the title is the word "closest." Greenberg argues here for only one linguistic superfamily, equal in status to a number of others--one galaxy, as it were, in the starry heavens. What, then, is the closest other galaxy to ours? The American Indian languages, from Canada to Patagonia. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews� Was this review helpful to you?�Yes No Report abuse | PermalinkComment�Comment

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