Global InformationEurasiatic languages information
| Eurasiatic | |
|---|---|
| (widely rejected[1][2]) | |
| Geographic distribution | Before the 16th century, most of Siberia and Western Eurasia; today worldwide |
| Linguistic classification | Nostratic (?)
|
| Proto-language | Proto-Eurasiatic |
| Subdivisions |
|
| Glottolog | None |
 The worldwide distribution of the Eurasiatic macrofamily of languages according to Pagel et al. | |
Eurasiatic[3] is a hypothetical and controversial language macrofamily proposal that would include many language families historically spoken in northern, western, and southern Eurasia.
The idea of a Eurasiatic superfamily dates back more than 100 years. Joseph Greenberg's proposal, dating to the 1990s, is the most widely discussed version. In 2013, Mark Pagel and three colleagues published what they believe to be statistical evidence for a Eurasiatic language family.
The branches of Eurasiatic vary between proposals, but typically include the widely rejected Altaic macrofamily (comprised in part of Mongolic, Tungusic and Turkic), Chukchi-Kamchatkan, Eskimo–Aleut, Indo-European, and Uralic—although Greenberg uses the controversial Uralic-Yukaghir classification instead. Other branches sometimes included are the Kartvelian and Dravidian families, as proposed by Pagel et al., in addition to the language isolates Nivkh, Etruscan and Greenberg's "Korean–Japanese–Ainu". Some proposals group Eurasiatic with even larger macrofamilies, such as Nostratic; again, many other professional linguists regard the methods used as invalid.
The hypothesis has fallen out of favour and has limited degrees of acceptance, predominantly among a minority of Russian linguists. Linguists worldwide reject Eurasiatic and many other macrofamily hypotheses such as Nostratic, with the exception of Dené–Yeniseian languages, which has been met with some degree of acceptance.[4]
- ^ Campbell, Lyle (1998). Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. The MIT Press. p. 311. ISBN 978-0262518499.
- ^ Campbell, Lyle (2013). Historical linguistics : an introduction (Third ed.). Edinburgh. p. 346. ISBN 978-0-7486-7559-3. OCLC 828792941.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Evolution of Human Languages (March 2014).
- ^ Campbell, Lyle (2013). Historical linguistics : an introduction (Third ed.). Edinburgh. p. 346. ISBN 978-0-7486-7559-3. OCLC 828792941.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)