| Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 2, Lexicon Contributor(s): Greenberg, Joseph H. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0804746249 ISBN-13: 9780804746243 Publisher: Stanford University Press OUR PRICE: $71.25 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: April 2002 Annotation: "This last (and posthumous) work of the 20th century's greatest anthropological linguist is fundamental to the cross-disciplinary conversation among linguists, archaeologists, and geneticists. As a lexicon comparing a unique set of languages, it is also a reference book that scholars will want to refer to."--Carol F. Justus, University of Texas at Austin |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Language Arts & Disciplines | Linguistics - General - Foreign Language Study | Indic Languages |
| Dewey: 410 |
| LCCN: 99041501 |
| Physical Information: 0.73" H x 6.36" W x 9.26" (1.01 lbs) 232 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The basic thesis of this two-volume work (Volume I. Grammar was published in 2000) 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 Europe across 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, Chukotian, and Eskimo-Aleut. The author asserts that the evidence presented in the two volumes for the validity of Eurasiatic as a single linguistic family 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 present volume provides lexical evidence for the validity of Eurasiatic as a linguistic stock. Since some of the relevant etymological material has already been published in the work of some Nostraticists, this volume emphasizes those etymologies involving Ainu, Gilyak, Chukotian, and Eskimo-Aleut, languages generally omitted from Nostratic studies. The Eurasiatic family is itself most closely related to the Amerind family, with which it shares numerous roots. The Eurasiatic-Amerind family represents a relatively recent expansion (circa 15,000 BP) into territory opened up by the melting of the Arctic ice cap. Eurasiatic-Amerind stands apart from the other families of the Old World, among which the differences are much greater and represent deeper chronological groupings. The volume includes a classification of Eurasiatic languages, references cited, and semantic and phonetic indexes. |
