The Origin of Language : Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue / Merritt Ruhlen.

By: Ruhlen, Merritt [author.].

Material type: Text

Text Language of document:EnglishSeries: Harvard Oriental Series - Opera Minora ; 14.Publisher: Piscataway, NJ : Gorgias Press, [2023]Copyright date: ©2023Description: 1 online resource (319 p.).Content type: text Media type: computer Carrier type: online resourceISBN: 9781463244965.Subject(s): Human evolution | Language and languages -- Classification | Language and languages -- Origin | Ancient languages | Foreign Language Study | General | FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY / Ancient Languages (see also Latin)Additional physical formats: No titleDDC classification: 401 Online resources: Click here to access online | Click here to access online | Cover

Contents:

Frontmatter -- Preface 2010 -- Preface 1994 -- Contents -- Prologue: What Do We Mean by the Origin of Language? -- 1 Language and History: Voices from the Past -- 2 Language Families: What is Known -- 3 Controversy: What is Debated -- 4 Native Americans: Language in the New World -- 5 The Origin of Language: Are There Global Cognates? -- 6 A Window on the World: What Has Been Resolved -- 7 Genes: Biology and Language -- 8 The Emerging Synthesis: On the Origin of Modern Humans -- Epilogue: Reconstruction, Sound Correspondences, and Homelands -- An Annotated Bibliography -- Appendices -- Index

Title is part of eBook package:DG Plus PP Package 2023 Part 2Title is part of eBook package:EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2023 EnglishTitle is part of eBook package:EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2023Title is part of eBook package:EBOOK PACKAGE Linguistics 2023 EnglishTitle is part of eBook package:EBOOK PACKAGE Linguistics 2023Title is part of eBook package:Gorgias Press Complete eBook-Package 2023Summary: This book, The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue, originally published in 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, was written in a more popular style, accessible to an educated general audience, than the more scholarly and academic tome of a similar title, On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy, published the same year. In The Origin of Language Ruhlen laid out the principles of linguistic genetic classification, i.e., classifying languages into families according to common origins rather than typological features. Ruhlen showed how simple this can be, especially for languages that have diverged for a few millennia, by juxtaposing short lists of basic (non-cultural) words like eye, fire, and tongue. He also showed that the same methods can be used to postulate older and deeper families, often called "macro-families" or "macrophyla," by comparing reconstructed forms from lower-level families. Such deeper families (e.g., Nostratic, Dene-Caucasian, Nilo-Saharan, Austric) are generally more controversial than lower-level families, but Ruhlen did not shy from discussing them if he thought the evidence supported them. Ruhlen was also interested in other fields of anthropology, such as archaeology and human genetics, and brought these fields into play.

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This book, The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue, originally published in 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, was written in a more popular style, accessible to an educated general audience, than the more scholarly and academic tome of a similar title, On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy, published the same year. In The Origin of Language Ruhlen laid out the principles of linguistic genetic classification, i.e., classifying languages into families according to common origins rather than typological features. Ruhlen showed how simple this can be, especially for languages that have diverged for a few millennia, by juxtaposing short lists of basic (non-cultural) words like eye, fire, and tongue. He also showed that the same methods can be used to postulate older and deeper families, often called "macro-families" or "macrophyla," by comparing reconstructed forms from lower-level families. Such deeper families (e.g., Nostratic, Dene-Caucasian, Nilo-Saharan, Austric) are generally more controversial than lower-level families, but Ruhlen did not shy from discussing them if he thought the evidence supported them. Ruhlen was also interested in other fields of anthropology, such as archaeology and human genetics, and brought these fields into play.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Mai 2023)

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