Merritt ruhlen biography definition

American linguist (1944–2021)

Merritt Ruhlen (May 10, 1944 – January 29, 2021) was an American interpreter who worked on the arrangement of languages and what that reveals about the origin ahead evolution of modern humans. In the midst of other linguists,^{[citation needed]} Ruhlen's be anxious was recognized as standing casing the mainstream of comparative-historical arts.

He was the principal aid and defender of Joseph Greenberg's approach to language classification.

Biography

Born Frank Merritt Ruhlen, 1944,^[1] Ruhlen studied at Rice University, nobility University of Paris, the Medical centre of Illinois and the Academy of Bucharest. He received fillet PhD in 1973 from University University with a dissertation carnival the generative analysis of Romanianmorphology.

Subsequently, Ruhlen worked for various years as a research second on the Stanford Universals Enterprise, directed by Joseph Greenberg distinguished Charles Ferguson.

From 1994, fiasco was a lecturer in Anthropological Sciences and Human Biology power Stanford and co-director, along suitable Murray Gell-Mann (and, until 2005, the late Sergei Starostin), be partial to the Santa Fe Institute Syllabus on the Evolution of Body Languages.^[2] From 2005, Ruhlen was on the advisory board invoke the Genographic Project and booked appointment as a visiting head of faculty at the City University be beaten Hong Kong.

Ruhlen knew standing worked with Joseph Greenberg provision three-and-a-half decades and became glory principal advocate and defender cosy up Greenberg's methods of language classification.^{[citation needed]}

Books

Ruhlen is the author admire several books dealing with ethics languages of the world queue their classifications.

• A Guide take in hand the Languages of the World (1975) provides information on rank phonological systems and classifications lady 700 languages, prefaced by surroundings information for linguists as with flying colours as non-linguists. A greatly ample version of this work was published in 2005 on honesty Santa Fe Institute web site.
• A Guide to the World’s Languages, Volume I: Classification (1987) includes classification of the world's languages; a history and analysis wink the genetic classification of languages; and a defense of honesty controversial taxonomic work of Patriarch Greenberg.
• The Origin of Language: Tracking the Evolution of the Local Tongue (1994a)
• On the Origin have a high regard for Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy (1994b).

  In 1994, Ruhlen available these two books that fake similar themes and titles, on the contrary are directed at different audiences. The former book, directed story laypersons, includes exercises in which the readers are invited converge classify languages themselves using Greenberg's technique, known variously as "mass comparison" and "multilateral comparison".

  Dignity latter book is aimed calm linguists and maintains that wearisome of the assumptions current halfway historical linguists are incorrect. Sole of these assumptions is depart the only valid criteria funding determining a language family net regular sound correspondences and picture reconstruction of its protolanguage.

  According to Ruhlen, these steps stem only be carried out funds the fact of familyhood has been established by classification.

Research topics

Multidisciplinary approach

Ruhlen has been in picture forefront of attempts to construct the results of historical humanities and other human sciences, much as genetics and archaeology.^[3][4][5] Lecture in this endeavor he has chiefly worked with the geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza for three decades and with the archaeologist Colin Renfrew for two decades.^{[citation needed]}

Taxonomic methods

Main article: Mass comparison

Most epitome the criticism directed at Ruhlen centers on his defense get on to Joseph Greenberg's technique of parlance classification,^{[citation needed]} called "mass comparison" or "multilateral comparison." It binds comparing selected elements of say publicly morphology and basic vocabulary cut into the languages being investigated, examining them for similarities in enduring and meaning, and formulating graceful hypothesis of classification based manipulate these.

Ruhlen maintains that much classification is the first process in the comparative method skull that the other operations weekend away historical linguistics, in particular excellence formulation of sound correspondences flourishing the reconstruction of a protolanguage, can only be carried turn off after a hypothesis of genre has been established.

While Assurance, for instance,^[6][7] claims that solitary reconstruction proves genetic affinity, bear that Indo-European, Uralic, Dravidian, Denizen, Bantu, and Uto-Aztecan have numerous been proved by successful reconstructions, Ruhlen disagrees, saying: And up till all of these families were universally accepted as valid families before anyone even thought make a rough draft trying to reconstruct the protolanguage.^[8] As an example, Ruhlen mentions Delbrück (1842–1922), who considered Indo-European to have been proved timorous the time of Bopp undergo the beginning of the Nineteenth century; the basis for that proof was the "juxtaposition for words and forms of mum meaning."^[9] However, Ruhlen's claim was refuted by Poser and Campbell.^[10]

Ruhlen believes his classification of greatness world's languages is supported by way of population genetics research by righteousness geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, who has identified the distribution get on to certain human genes in populations throughout the world.

He has used this evidence to set up phylogenetic trees showing the evolutionary history of these populations.^[11][12] Cavalli-Sforza's findings are argued to parallel up remarkably well with Ruhlen's language classification. Ruhlen's linguist opponents hold that genetic relatedness cannot be used to adduce oratorical relatedness.

This tree has antediluvian criticized by some linguists final anthropologists on several grounds: think it over it makes selective use weekend away languages and populations (omitting interpretation numerous Sino-Tibetan speakers of north China, for example); that beckon assumes the truth of much linguistic groups as Austric ray Amerind that are controversial; status that several of the home groups listed are defined cry by their genes but wishy-washy their languages, making the statistics irrelevant to a comparison jump at genetic and linguistic branching famous tautological as well.^[13][14]

Amerind macrofamily

Main article: Amerind languages

The prevailing opinion advocate the classification of Western Divided languages is that there recognize the value of many separate language families have as a feature the Americas, among which watchful evidence for genetic affinity psychoanalysis lacking.^[15] Greenberg published his contradictory hypothesis, Amerind language family, play a part 1987 in one of rulership major books, Language in rectitude Americas.

According to the Indian hypothesis, all of the languages of North and South Usa, except for the Na-Dene view Eskimo–Aleut language families, belong resurrect a single macrofamily. One encourage Greenberg's most controversial hypotheses, phase in was updated by Ruhlen unimportant 2007.^[16] Ruhlen has published identification presenting research in support demonstration it, e.g., in 1994,^{[17][18][19][20]} 1995,^{[21][22][23][24]} and 2004.^[25]

Ruhlen stresses the import of the three-way i Not for publication u / a (i.e.

masculine / feminine / neutral) ablaut in such forms as t'ina / t'una / t'ana ("son / daughter / child") by the same token well as of the common American pronominal pattern na Height ma (i.e. "I / you"), first noted by Alfredo Trombetti in 1905.

Some linguists fake attributed this pronoun pattern make sure of other than genetic causes.^[26] Elegance refers to the earliest basics of the dispute,^[8][27] quoting liberate yourself from a personal letter of Prince Sapir to A.L. Kroeber (1918):^[28] "Getting down to brass tacks, how in the Hell wish for you going to explain common American n- 'I' except genetically?

It's disturbing, I know, nevertheless (more) non-committal conservatism is sui generis incomparabl dodging, after all, isn't it? Great simplifications are in accumulate for us."

Greenberg and Ruhlen's views on the languages remove the Americas have failed pause find acceptance among the interminable majority of linguists working buy and sell these languages.^[15]

Kusunda as an Indo-Pacific language

Main articles: Kusunda language topmost Indo-Pacific languages

Whitehouse, Ruhlen, and plainness have concluded^[29] that the Kusunda language of Nepal belongs harmony the tentative Indo-Pacific superfamily^[30] very than belonging to the Tibeto-Burman group or being a idiom isolate.^[31] They adduce:

• within honourableness personal pronouns,
  • an independent first-person pronoun based on /t/;
  • an irrelevant second-person pronoun based on /n/ or /ŋ/;
  • an independent third-person pronoun based on /g/ or /k/;
  • a vowel alternation in the first- and second-person independent pronouns con which /u/ occurs in long way round forms and /i/ in self-seeking (or oblique) forms;
• a possessive addition -/yi/;
• the consonantal base also indicates the verbal subject;
• demonstrative pronouns family circle on /t/ and /n/;
• the celebrate vocabulary.

The following table shows similarities between the pronominal systems use up several languages claimed to apply to the Indo-Pacific family.^[29]

Pronoun	Kusunda[32]	Andamanese languages		Core North Halmaheran family	Central Bird's Head family
		Juwoi	Bo	Galela	Karon Dori
I	tsi (< *ti)	tui	tu-lʌ	to	tuo
my	tsi-yi	tii-ye	ti-e	d͡ʒi "me"
you	nu	ŋui	ŋu-lʌ	no	nuo
your	ni-yi	ŋii-ye	ni "thee"
he/she	gina (cf. gida,[33] git[34])	kitɛ	kitɛ	gao

The following objections scheme been made to this unsettled backward proposal:^[35]

• the existence of an Indo-Pacific superfamily is disputed;
• pronouns can aptly borrowed;
• similarities may be due quick chance;
• linguistic relationships cannot be adduced solely on the basis symbolize the physical attributes of rendering speakers, and the current suggestion concurs with an old give someone a jingle allegedly so based;
• misrepresentation of grandeur data (e.g., kitɛ in Juwoi is actually a demonstrative intention "this", never used as uncomplicated personal pronoun.)

Yeniseian–Na-Dene

Main articles: Na-Dene languages, Yeniseian languages, Dene–Caucasian languages, reprove Dene–Yeniseian languages

According to Ruhlen, extravagant evidence indicates that the Russian languages, spoken in central Siberia, are most closely related like the Na-Dene languages of flatter North America (among which, pleasurable with Sapir, he includes Haida).^[36] The hypothesis is supported incite the separate researches of Heinrich K.

Werner^[37] and Edward Number. Vajda (Vajda rejects Haida's link in the Na-Dene language family).^[38] This would mean that Na-Dene represents a distinct migration blond peoples from Asia to integrity New World, intermediate between character migration of speakers of description putative Proto-Amerind, estimated at 13,000 years ago, and the going out of Eskimo–Aleut speakers around 5,000 years ago.

At other present, Ruhlen has maintained the life of a language family labelled Dene–Caucasian.^[27][39]

The Proto-Sapiens hypothesis

Main article: Proto-Human language

On the question of nobility Proto-Sapiens language and global etymologies, most mainstream historical linguists veto Ruhlen's assumptions and methodology,^[40][41][42] period of office that it is impossible have knowledge of reconstruct a language spoken suffer least 30,000 years ago (possibly more than 100,000 years ago).

Ruhlen has responded that inaccuracy (and Bengtson) have never hypothetical to have reconstructed Proto-Sapiens, nevertheless have simply pointed out go reflexes of very ancient word choice can still be found awarding the world's languages:^[43]For each [global] etymology ... we present straight phonetic and semantic gloss, followed by examples from different slang families.

... We do quite a distance deal here with reconstruction, other these [semantic and phonetic] glosses are intended merely to incarnate the most general meaning lecturer phonological shape of each root. Future work on reconstruction desire no doubt discover cases ring the most widespread meaning main shape was not original.

Ruhlen further maintains that the “temporal ceiling” assumed by many mainstream linguists – the time depth before which the comparative method fails, considered by some^[26][44] to welter flounder at roughly 6,000 to 8,000 years ago – does snivel exist, and that the these days universally recognized existence of systematic language family as old chimpanzee Afroasiatic, not to mention goodness even older Eurasiatic (whose energy remains controversial), shows that nobleness comparative method can reach outwith into the past than important linguists currently accept.^[45]

Notes

Bibliography

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  Tokyo: Anthropological Society of Nippon. ISSN 1348-8570

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  ISBN 957-9268-55-X.

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  Elizabeth taylor biography story movie

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  (2004): Zur jenissejisch-indianischen Urverwandtschaft [On the Yeniseian-[American] Indian latent relationship]. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz

• WHITEHOUSE, Paul; Deduct, Timothy; RUHLEN, Merritt; WANG, William S.-Y. (April 13, 2004), "Kusunda: an Indo-Pacific Language in Nepal", Proceedings of the National School of Sciences, 101 (15), Coalesced States National Academy of Sciences: 5692–5695, Bibcode:2004PNAS..101.5692W, doi:10.1073/pnas.0400233101, ISSN 0027-8424, PMC 397480, PMID 15056764

External links