Newest Addition to the Indo-European Family: Burushaski

[dhok]

The news only broke five hours ago, so this is the only source I can find. Apparently a prof at Macquarie University has proven- if that is the correct term- that Burushaski is Indo-European, specifically Phrygian (having been carried to Kashmir by the armies of Alexander the Great). I can't find anything technical yet, but apparently the entire next issue of the Journal of Indo-European Studies will be devoted to the matter- perhaps someone with access can copy and paste the articles for us to peruse?

[Bob Johnson]

Wait, what? but Burushaski is insane

Also this might be less offline http://www.mq.edu.au/newsroom/2012/06/1 ... -language/

Will they unify IE and Dené–Yeniseian next?

[2+3 clusivity]

I'm gonna call myth busted on this one.

"Macquarie University historical linguistics researcher, Associate Professor Ilija Casule, discovered that the language, known as Burushaski, which is spoken by about 90,000 people who reside in a remote area of North West Pakistan, is Indo-European in origin, not Indo-Iranian."

Well, first they need to prove the language is indo-iranian--which then begs the question . . . haha . . . isn't he aware that indo-iranian is part of indo-european?

And seriously, just look at Burushaski.

Also, where is there material on Phyrgian to compare with? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrygian_language.

[merijn]

It is not a new proposal that it is related to Indo-European. Googling his name I found that the same author has written articles going back to 1998 that argue that Burushaski is related to Indo-European, and from what I gather, these articles haven't convinced many people yet. We will see if his arguments will convince more people this time.

[8Deer]

I'm gonna call myth busted on this one.

"Macquarie University historical linguistics researcher, Associate Professor Ilija Casule, discovered that the language, known as Burushaski, which is spoken by about 90,000 people who reside in a remote area of North West Pakistan, is Indo-European in origin, not Indo-Iranian."

Well, first they need to prove the language is indo-iranian--which then begs the question . . . haha . . . isn't he aware that indo-iranian is part of indo-european?

I think that's just the reporter's way of saying it's not a part of the Indo-Iranian family like the languages around it. That's the way I read it anyways.

EDIT: Still a very bad choice of words though.

[Salmoneus]

Issues:
1. We know shit all about Phrygian
2. Unless aliens are involved, the time-depth seems far too small to allow the massive lexical, phonetical and syntactical shifts from Phrygian to Burushaski
3. I'm sorry, these Macedonians invaded Greece, assembled a Greek-Macedonian army, invaded and defeated Persia, assembled a Greek-Macedonian-Persian army, and marched to India... and the small number of soldiers who for some reason decide to wander off into the Himalaya (presumably distinct from the ones who allegedly founded the Kalash?) somehow managed to be speakers of... Phrygian? And while the area around them was controlled by Greek-speaking kingdoms (ie people they presumably knew from having been soldiers alongside them), they decided to continue to isolate themselves as Weirdo-Phrygian speakers?
4. Northwestern Indo-European is... the Balkans now?

I'm not saying it's impossible, particularly since there's probably some distortion by the reporters. But - this would certainly be suprising if confirmed.

[TaylorS]

I call BS on this. Armenian is a close relative of Phrygian and Burushaski is NOTHING like Armenian.

[Ulan]

A pdf on Burushaski

[Xephyr]

Want to be true... but... pop journalism on linguistics... too... shitty...

Does anybody know of a blog post or anything that comments on this? One that isn't run by Mark "roflrofl look at this curious turn of phrase this politician used rofllmao" Liberman and Victor "omg guise somebody mistranslated some chinese somewhere zomgz" Mair?

[merijn]

I also want someone to comment who is more knowledgeable than me on this subject. I know enough about historical linguistics to differentiate between the absolute quacks and the professional linguists, and to understand the different arguments against or for a certain theory, but my judgment is of little value when it comes to saying what theory is better when both theories are good linguistic theories. That said, browsing through a couple of articles about this subject I am far from convinced that Burushaski is IE.
The Journal of Indo-European Studies is no stranger to devoting issues about controversial theories, they devoted once an issue to the out-of-India theory, where there was one article arguing for it, and the other articles were tearing that article apart. Something similar seems to happen in this particular issue of JIES, which is here.

[Salmoneus]

Possibly the two key facts:

1. The theory proposes that the Burushaski are Phrygian, and that the Phrygians were in turn immigrants from Macedonia.
2. The guy proposing this theory is... Macedonian.

Oh that good old-fashioned Balkan nationalism at work again.

[Qwynegold]

Oh shit, if this is true then I need to change and resubmit my language isolates quiz. >.<

[TaylorS]

Possibly the two key facts:

1. The theory proposes that the Burushaski are Phrygian, and that the Phrygians were in turn immigrants from Macedonia.
2. The guy proposing this theory is... Macedonian.

Oh that good old-fashioned Balkan nationalism at work again.

#2 means this crap can be dismissed out of hand, then. Are they still claiming Alex the Great spoke Proto-Slavic, LOL?

[Aurora Rossa]

#2 means this crap can be dismissed out of hand, then. Are they still claiming Alex the Great spoke Proto-Slavic, LOL?

Whoa really? Someone should put that in the linguistic crackpottery thread.

[Soap]

Well if it is related, it surely must hold the record for smallest amount of cognates. I havent seen his essay, and I'm only basing my opinion on one source (Wikipedia), which admittedly tells me very little ,but I can't see how this language could possibly go back to PIE, even to a branch that is itself little known.

[Rodlox]

Possibly the two key facts:

1. The theory proposes that the Burushaski are Phrygian, and that the Phrygians were in turn immigrants from Macedonia.
2. The guy proposing this theory is... Macedonian.

Oh that good old-fashioned Balkan nationalism at work again.

#2 means this crap can be dismissed out of hand, then.

Is it possible this person's only connection to the crackpots and strange-theory-promoters, is that he happens to be Macedonian?

[Gray Richardson]

This story made it onto NPR's All Things Considered today. It was fun to hear it on the radio as I was sitting in traffic on the way home from work.

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/20/155454736 ... -relatives

[clawgrip]

Possibly the two key facts:

1. The theory proposes that the Burushaski are Phrygian, and that the Phrygians were in turn immigrants from Macedonia.
2. The guy proposing this theory is... Macedonian.

Oh that good old-fashioned Balkan nationalism at work again.

#2 means this crap can be dismissed out of hand, then.

Is it possible this person's only connection to the crackpots and strange-theory-promoters, is that he happens to be Macedonian?

It is indeed possible. His argument is based on circumstancial ad hominem reasoning.

Assoc. Prof. Ilija Casule proposes a theory that incidentally promotes Macedonia in some way.
Assoc. Prof. Ilija Casule is Macedonian.
Therefore, the theory is false.

A proponent's predisposition does not automatically falsify a proposition.

This also doesn't mean the theory is true, though, and the burden of proof does lie with the professor. I'm not informed enough on any of the languages to say one way or another.

[Rodlox]

Assoc. Prof. Ilija Casule proposes a theory that incidentally promotes Macedonia in some way.
Assoc. Prof. Ilija Casule is Macedonian.
Therefore, the theory is false.

A proponent's predisposition does not automatically falsify a proposition.

it's not even a predisposition...its an ancestry. (it's like lumping Chompsky with me (and our respective amounts of my linguistic knowledge)} {yes, i had a better analogy, but I forgot half of it}

This also doesn't mean the theory is true,

agreed.

[clawgrip]

It's a predisposition presumed by TaylorS to exist based on the ancestry of the professor. TaylorS's dismissive argument clearly implies that, being Macedonian, the professor has a predisposition toward the improvement/betterment/etc. of Macedonia, even if it means manipulating or selectively ignoring facts in order to show Macedonia's connection to a minority language in Pakistan (why this would be beneficial for Macedonia, I don't know...to prove somehow that Alexander the Great was Macedonian and not Greek?) Not only, however, has this presumed predisposition not been proven to exist in even the slightest degree, even if it did, being a Macedonia-booster does not, as I said, automatically falsify any claim he makes regarding Macedonia/Burushaski/etc.. It is a point to keep in mind, but not by any means a deciding factor.

[merijn]

A Dutch Linguistics blog has some information: http://nederl.blogspot.nl/2012/06/burushaski.html. Most important bit: "Lubovsky, who is one of the most important scholars in comparative Indo-European studies says that he has rejected an article of the Australian scholar on this subject for three different journals.There may be some evidence that the Burushaski were in contact with an Indo-European people in the past, but certainly not that they speak an Indo-European language themselves."

[Radius Solis]

A few years ago a careful and thorough case was made by a linguist in BC that Tsimshian was an Indo-European language. He had identified systematic sound correspondences covering the bulk of Tsimshian's sounds and assembled a list of more than a hundred perfect "cognates" among core vocabulary (i.e. perfect semantic matches) and another two or three hundred reasonably good ones besides, all of them obeying the correspondences with high regularity. The list included multiple early sound changes that were shared with the Tocharian branch, IE's easternmost offshoot and the one geographically closest to the territory of the Tsimshian, notably its collapse of the three stop series into just one, /p t k/. Meanwhile the Tsimshian themselves apparently have oral histories of having migrated to their present territory from somewhere much further north, possibly Alaska, which could shave another thousand miles off the geographic distance.

But for all the lexical matches and regular sound correspondences, after many years of effort he could not identify even one good grammatical correspondence. Tsimshian is grammatically nothing whatsoever like IE - the matchup is worse than that expectable from random chance. Meanwhile, contrary to the oral histories, the language shows evidence of having been in contact with its current neighbors for a long time - it's a core member of the PNW linguistic area! So there his proposal sits, dead in the water. Not totally implausible, but well short of demonstrated.

This is the fate of most modern attempts to demonstrate genetic relationships among languages, as all the low-hanging fruit has already been picked, and very likely this Burushaski proposal will end up in much the same limbo. If you want to demonstrate a relationship these days the argument needs to be powerful.

[Herr Dunkel]

Indo-Uralic seems like a good excersize.

[TaylorS]

Indo-Uralic seems like a good excersize.

I'm a follower of WeepingElf's "Mitian" grouping (IE, Uralic, Chukchi-Kamchatkan, Eskimo-Aleut, and Altaic. I myself also include Etruscan and Kartvelian), so-called because of 1st person pronouns and inflections with /m/ (usually becoming /b/ in the eastern families) and 2nd person pronouns and inflections with /t/. Proto-Mitian likely had a plural suffix *-t, a dual suffix *-k, had an SOV word order, and had 2 sets of personal inflections of uncertain usage.

Nostratic, however, is BS. I do not think Afro-Asiatic and Dravidian have any re constructable relationship to Mitian. Afro-Asiatic originated in the horn of Africa and dispersed via cattle-herding, while Mitian originated in Central Asia and may have dispersed via the using dogs in an intensive way rather than as just guards and as garbage disposal.

[Cedh]

Mitian looks like a plausible grouping, yes. Within Mitian, there appears to be a fairly clear division between a "Euro-Siberian" group (including IE, Uralic, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and Eskimo-Aleut) and an "Altaic" group (including Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic). The latter one might not be a single node though; I know too little about those languages to say anything substantial here.

Within Euro-Siberian, I consider Fortescue's Uralo-Siberian grouping more likely than Indo-Uralic. A major point in favor of this is that the reconstructed phoneme inventories of the four Uralo-Siberian groups are very similar to each other, especially in the consonants (only one series of plosives, plus a series of voiced fricatives; as opposed to PIE's three plosive series but no voiced fricatives).

So if Mitian is indeed a valid language family, I would imagine its internal structure to be something like this:

Code: Select all

Mitian
- Core Mitian
-- Euro-Siberian
--- Europic
---- Indo-European
---- (probably other languages in Europe; e.g. the language of the Old European Hydronymy)
--- Uralo-Siberian
---- Uralic
---- Yukaghir
---- Beringian
----- Chukotko-Kamchatkan
----- Eskimo-Aleut
-- Altaic (doubtful as a single node)
--- Turkic
--- Mongolic
--- Tungusic
- (Tyrrhenian [Etruscan & related languages]; doubtful)
- (Kartvelian; doubtful)
- (Korean-Japanese; very doubtful)