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THE CONVERGENCE OF EURASIATIC AND NOSTRATIC Joseph H. Greenberg stanford University (submitted to Studies in Language)

1. INTRODUCTION

In Greenberg (1987:332} a linguistic stock named Eurasiatic is outlined with the following membership: 1. Indo-European; 2. Uralic-Yukaghir; 3. Altaic (Turkic, Mongolian, Tungusic); 4. Korean; 5. Japanese; 6. Ainu; 7. Chukotian; 9. Eskaleut. these, 4-6, i.e. Korean, Japanese, and Ainu are stated as probably forming a subgroup. A volume (Greenberg, to appear) is Of

in preparation which will present the evidence for this family. The present writer arrived at this hypothesis some time in the mid 1960's as part of the task of determining the genetic affiliations of languages in the Americas, in this instance, that of the Eskimo and Aleut group. At that time, the Russian-Nostratic school, which has recently become prominent, was hardly known in the United States and I arrived at my own hypothesis in complete independence of their results. The Nostratic hypothesis is most commonly stated in terms of the genetic relationship among the following six families: IndoEuropean, Uralic, Altaic, Afroasiatic, Kartvelian and Dravidian. Since Eurasiatic has much in common with Nostratic, along with

major differences, the term EurasiaticjNostratic is sometimes employed. These major differences have understandably led some historical linguists, e.g. Watkins (1990:295) to shed some doubt on both. He (Watkins) asks rhetorically whether these are just

trivial differences and whether he is "nit-picky" in pointing them out. The answer, of course, is that he is not.

However, as will be discussed in detail in the following section, there have been significant changes in the views of Nostraticists in recent years as the result of which the difference between Eurasiatic and Nostratic has been very greatly reduced. A further point of significance, which will be set

forth in detail in the second section, is that the statement about Nostratic as consisting of just these six particular families has never corresponded to the actual views of the Nostraticists, even those of Holger Pedersen who coined the term Nostratic. Hence, the second section will be devoted to an

historical account of Nostratic theory insofar as it relates to the actual membership of Nostratic as conceived by important individual members of this school. The third section of the paper will discuss briefly some points of methodology. What might be called the six canonic branches of Nostratic are based on Illich-Svitych's dictionary (1971) especially the initial table on the correspondences of grammatical elements. The reasons for the exclusion of other

languages, some recognized by all Nostraticists even though they

figure marginally or not at all in the dictionary and not at all in the tables of grammatical elements, will be set forth. The

reasons for the exclusions will lead to a critical discussion of methodological differences between the present writer and the Nostratic school, the contributions which each can make, and the affirmation of the identity of goals in the two approaches. 1.1 Recent changes in the conception of Nostratic. Perhaps the best summary of the overall significance of recent developments in Nostratic theory is that of Lamb and Mitchell (1991:123), namely, that in recent years Russian comparativists have revised their classification so that it is now closer to my Eurasiatic in two important respects. One is

that Afroasiatic is now generally viewed as a sister superstock to Nostratic, rather than part of it. The other is that they

have added further stocks to the northeast extending as far as Eskimo-Aleut. They note that an important question still to be

resolved is that of Dravidian, to which I would add Kartvelian. The exclusion of Afroasiatic as being on the same level as the rest is likewise noted in Starostin (1984:43) who refers to his "cautious approach" to Afroasiatic which he now prefers to exclude from Nostratic comparison. Fleming (1990:3) takes note of Starostins opinion and adds that Bomhard (personal communication) now feels that Afroasiatic is distinct from the rest of Nostratic. Shevoroshkin and Monaster Ramer (1991:179) along similar lines note that Afroasiatic may be coordinate with Nostratic, a

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"sister" and not a "daughter."

They add that the Russian

investigators Golovastikov and Dolgopolsky {1972) and Mudrak {1984) have presented evidence for the Nostratic affiliations of Chukchi-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut respectively. The most comprehensive recent statement is that of Bomhard {1992) in which Eurasiatic is given status as a valid genetic group within a wider Nostratic family. His Eurasiatic is

identical with mine except for the omission of Ainu, Japanese and Korean. However Korean, with some reservation, is included in

his Altaic, so that the only real difference is the omission of Japanese and Ainu. The former of these is admitted to have

Altaic elements but in view of Benedict {1990), a work which connects Japanese with Tai-Austronesian, judgement is reserved. The larger Nostratic family as set forth by Bombard has the following genetic structure. It consists of two main branches of

Afroasiatic, which is thus the most remote, and the remainder. Within this remainder, Kartvelian, forms a group against the rest. The last major division is between sumerian and Elamo-

Dravidian on the one hand and Eurasiatic on the other. Eurasiatic is described as consisting of six branches: 1. IndoEuropean 2. Uralic-Yukaghir 3. Altaic 4. Chukchi-Kamchatkan 5. Gilyak 6. Eskimo-Aleut. As noted earlier, the only difference

between Bomhard's and my Eurasiatic, concerns Japanese and Ainu. Bomhard {1990b) contains a convenient tree diagram illustrating all this reproduced here as Figure I.

One other matter, pertaining to the genetic status of Afroasiatic and Kartvelian, remains to be discussed. About 1965,

I noticed some important etymologies and grammatical features that appear to link Afroasiatic with Kartvelian. A later

examination of Illich-Svitych's Nostratic dictionary showed virtually the same etymologies, usually confined to Afroasiatic and Kartvelian. Etymologies restricted to two branches are quite Recently, a czech

uncommon in the Nostratic dictionary.

Nostraticist, Blazek {1990:360), in an article devoted to new etymologies linking Kartvelian to Nostratic, noted that a significantly larger number of such etymologies involved Afroasiatic than any other branch of conventional Nostratic. he states it: "The priority of Afroasiatic cognates with Kartvelian is evident." As

2.

History of views regarding the membership of Nostratic.

As noted earlier, most of the recent developments regarding the membership of Nostratic have historical antecedents. It is

particularly striking that in recent statements concerning the separate status of Afroasiatic, no mention is made of the fact that Pedersen, the founder of Nostratic theory, repeatedly stated similar views. I will consider here in turn the views of

Pedersen, Illich-Svitych and Dolgopolsky, who independently of Illich-Svitych developed very similar ideas during the same period.

2.1

Holger Pedersen The term Nostratic was first introduced in 1903 as a

designation of language and language families related to IndoEuropean (<Latin nostrates "our countrymen"). writings, the following points are emphasized. In subsequent The relationship

of Indo-European to Uralic is much closer than that of IndoEuropean to Semitic (i.e. Afroasiatic, of which it is a part, in present terminology). stressed. The resemblance to Uralic is especially

For example, in regard to pronouns he writes that you

will not find such a thorough agreement a second time (1935:330). Again in relation to Uralic and Indo-European (1931:337) he maintains that after the work of Wicklund and Paasonen, it is unnecessary to doubt the relation further, or again that to deny the relationship between these families would be overbold (1931:331). In connection with the closer relationship of Indo-European to Finno-Ugric than to Semitic he makes the interesting remark (1933:309) that Finno-Ugric is to be compared to Indo-European in its post-Ablaut stage but should be compared to Semitic in its pre-Ablaut stage. He goes on to draw once more the conclusion

that the separation of Indo-European and Semitic was at a more ancient period that between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric. He seems to be referring to Indo-European qualitative Ablant usually stated
as~-

Q.

In Greenberg (1990), for which see further

details, an attempt is made to show that this Ablaut is part of a larger system of vowel alternations that has left traces in Indo-

European itself and which correspond quite clearly with a system of vowel height harmony (or more accurately originally ATR) found in Tungusic, Gilyak, Chukotian and Korean. A second major point is that Nostratic contains a whole series of languages in Northern Asia besides Finno-Ugric. In

this connection (1931:337) Pedersen mentions similar, though fainter, resemblances throughout all northern Asia, in Turkish, Mongolian, Manchu, Yukaghir and Eskimo. In fact, as early as

1908 (342-3), after discussing first person pronoun

m and

second

person t he mentions Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic and then indicates, referring to Uhlenbeck's Indo-European and Eskimo hypothesis, that this pattern also is found in Eskimo. Here as elsewhere he states that he cannot draw definite bounds to the extent of Nostratic and says (1908:ibid) that this should not cause concern. We may sum up Pedersen's views as follows. Indo-European is

related to Semitic and to a whole series of languages in northern Asia, including Finno-Ugric and Samoyed (now grouped together as Uralic), Yukaghir, Altaic and Eskimo. The relationship of IndoNowhere

European to Finno-Ugric is closer than that to Semitic.

does Pedersen mention Dravidian or Kartvelian, but for that matter he does not mention Japanese, Korean, or Ainu either. With regard to Japanese, Starostin (1991), a leading Nostraticist, has recently devoted an entire volume to the connection between Japanese and Altaic. I believe that this

accords with the opinion of almost all Nostraticists.

2.2 Vladislav Illich-Svitych. Illich-Svitych is generally regarded as the founder of modern Nostratic theory. His earliest comprehensive statement

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was published in 1966 in the form of a series of etymologies containing forms from the six families which "at the least" according to him make up Nostratic. It is interesting that in

Illich-Svitych (1964) called significantly "Oldest Indo-EuropeanSemitic Language Contacts," the author considered that the case for a relationship between Semitic and Indo-European was weak and that most of the resemblances were due to borrowing from Semitic by Indo-European. included. In the 1966 work, however, Afroasiatic is

Evidently, in this more comprehensive framework, it

was possible to see the relationship between it and the other groups included in Nostratic. In 1971, there appeared the first volume of the Nostratic dictionary which has become the standard source for Nostratic etymologies. It was edited by Dybo after Illich-Svitych's

untimely death in 1966. Although the dictionary continues the tradition of comparing only six main groups, Korean is included as a member of Altaic, following Ramstedt and Poppe. Illich-Svitych (1971:61) In the introduction written by

he notes in reference to Yukaghir that

the work of Collinder, Angere and Tailleur, while they do not allow us to consider Yukaghir a Uralic language do allow us to consider its Nostratic character. I believe that this agrees

with the conclusions of the scholars mentioned by Illich-Svitych

who did not consider Yukaghir a Uralic language but rather thought that it was related to Uralic as a whole. Dybo, in an

editorial footnote to the passage just cited, adds that the same remarks probably apply to Korean and Japanese in relation to Altaic. 2.2 Aron Dolgopolsky About the same time that Illich-Svitych began to publish regarding Nostratic, Dolgopolsky independently developed a theory linking Indo-European with Afroasiatic, Kartvelian and a series of languages in Northern Asia that includes Uralic, Altaic and Eskimo-Aleut (1964, 1965). He called his hypothesis Sibero-

European and criticized the name Nostratic (no doubt because of its ethnocentric character). more widely known term. Nevertheless, he later adopted the

In a later work on personal pronouns

{1984), he included Gilyak and Chukotian along with Elamite and Dravidian. From this historical review, it is clear that the Nostraticists, beginning with Pedersen, never restricted their notion of Nostratic to the six groups usually mentioned. The

special, more distant position of Afroasiatic is already insisted on by Pedersen. Moreover, every group I include in Eurasiatic,

with the exception of Ainu, is included in some of their enumerations, and often in their comparisons.

3. some Problems of Methodology.

Since such language and language groups as Yukaghir,

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Chukotian and Eskimo-Aleut are repeatedly mentioned as Nostratic beginning with Pedersen, why were they not included in the Nostratic dictionary? The answer is given in a statement by two After discussing

Nostraticists, Chejka and Lamprecht (1984:86).

Pedersen and Illich-Svitych they remark regarding the six groups almost exclusively cited in the latter's comparative dictionary. "Obviously this does not mean that the number of Nostratic families in the world is confined to the six mentioned. Illich-

Svitych in his generalization used only those language families for which the proto-linguistic bases have progressed to a satisfactory level." The result is an arbitrary group of related languages which do not have an exclusive common ancestor and do not therefore constitute a linguistic family in the ordinary sense. This issue has now become a topic of discussion among the Nostraticists themselves. It is broached by Bernhard (1992:62),

who states that there are now two main approaches which might be termed "taxonomy first" and "reconstruction first." He himself

favors the former but believes that the two can inform and further one another. In giving the edge to taxonomy he notes

that, after all, one cannot successfully reconstruct until one has first established which languages have a reasonable chance

of being genetically related, that is to say, one must know which languages to compare. Finally, a word should be said about inspection. It has

received a bad name lately in historical linguistics but, after

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all, it is a synonym for observation and observation is the first step in any empirical science. have done some inspection. The Nostraticists themselves must

They did not first compare any

language groups for which reconstruction had been carried out. For example, the study of Proto-Austronesian was well advanced but it was not included in Nostratic. Presumably this requires that one would have noticed resemblances among the Nostratic languages as a background to the rejection of Austronesian, before actually proceeding to the reconstruction of ProtoNostratic. I agree with Bomhard regarding the value of the interaction of the two approaches. The Nostraticists have discovered a large

number of widespread lexical etymologies and grammatical markers which will be of great value in attaining the common goal of a taxonomically correct and comprehensive classification of the languages of the world and extending vastly the reach of the comparative method of reconstruction and our knowledge of linguistic change.

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Joseph H.Greenberg Linguistics Department Stanford University Stanford CA 94305