The Indo-European Controversy: Facts and Fallacies in Historical Linguistics by Asya Pereltsvaig (PDF)

Description

Over the past decade, a group of prolific and innovative evolutionary biologists has sought to reinvent historical linguistics through the use of phylogenetic and phylogeographical analysis, treating cognates like genes and conceptualizing the spread of languages in terms of the diffusion of viruses. Using these techniques, researchers claim to have located the origin of the Indo-European language family in Neolithic Anatolia, challenging the near-consensus view that it emerged in the grasslands north of the Black Sea thousands of years later. But despite its widespread celebration in the global media, this new approach fails to withstand scrutiny. As languages do not evolve like biological species and do not spread like viruses, the model produces incoherent results, contradicted by the empirical record at every turn. This book asserts that the origin and spread of languages must be examined primarily through the time-tested techniques of linguistic analysis, rather than those of evolutionary biology.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I struggled through this book, not because it is technical and scholarly, features which it clearly contains; but because the authors have devoted so much of their text to an excoriating criticism of a single paper published in 2012 (partially recanted the next year) and the methodology behind it. That paper was a statistical analysis that produced a line of descent from a hypothetical parent language known as Proto-Indo-European (PIE for short) to the numerous past and current tongues that comprise the extensive family of Indo-European languages.Unfortunately for the authors of that paper, the mass media picked it up and touted it as the answer to a long-unsolved mystery. The fault for that egregious error belongs not on its authors (Bouckaert, et al., Science 337:957-60; Aug. 2012) but on writers for such outlets as The New York Times and the British Broadcasting Company. This does not deter Pereltsvaig and Lewis from their unprofessional attack on Bouckaert and his colleagues. Peer-reviewed scholarly works should never include words like “woeful” and “disastrous” in describing the efforts of fellow scholars who happen to have come to conclusions that differ from ones held by another scholar.During the last 150 years, millions of words have been devoted to the question of Indo-European origins. In the past, some writers touted the Indo-Europeans as a master race, but for many decades such abuse has disappeared from academe and the lay press as well. There is no reason to rehash this point, but again the authors cannot resist doing so.The mystery will never be solved for the simple reason that there are no written documents or inscribed tablets that contain a single word of the parent language. One can consider the evidence presented by proponents of any of the several schools of thought on the subject and chose what he or she believes is the best hypothesis. After so much criticism, Pereltsvaig and Lewis devote the last 70 pages of their book to presenting their case for the steppes hypothesis of PIE and its spread though Europe and Asia. This part of the book is cogent, authoritative and well documented; but like the work they’re attacking and, by their own admission, it’s only a hypothesis. The weight of scholarly opinion can be on one or another of several hypotheses, but given the insurmountable obstacles to bringing any of them to the level of established fact, historical linguistics will never produce an incontrovertible answer as to the origin of the language family.Finally, I have to state that the paperback edition is the worst example of bookmaking I’ve ever seen. Pages fall out upon turning them: and because all maps and figures are presented together at the end of the book, it’s necessary to turn pages very frequently.

⭐This book demolishes an attempt that was made, using a computer model based on a biological analogy, to determine the time and place of the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European (“PIE”), the hypothetical ancestor of a large number of living and dead languages, including English, ancient Latin and the modern Romance languages, Greek, Farsi and Hindi. The book demonstrates the fallacious assumptions underlying the computer model and why its results are invalid, and shows how the traditional methods of historical linguistics, while unable to answer conclusively the ultimate questions about the original speakers of PIE, offer a better approach to language history than the biology-based computer model in question. The presentation is well balanced and scrupulously avoids unsustainable claims.However, the book’s close argumentation and painstaking examination of the evidence on the main topic are not the only features that commend it. It contains a wealth of information about languages and language history, the methodology of historical linguistics and the specific history of the Indo-European languages. It’s very clearly written, and can be followed without difficulty by non-specialists like myself. For anyone interested in the topics it addresses (and who isn’t?), it’s an absorbing page-turner. Really.Like most hardcover academic books these days, which are aimed at libraries, it’s quite expensive. Hopefully a more affordable paperback edition will be forthcoming soon.

⭐The “Controversy” refers to the birthplace of all Indo-European languages. Recently DNA and linguistic analysis have confirmed the older archeology findings that the steppes just north of the Caucasus Mountains are the right location and that it occurred around 5,500 years ago. But some old tenured professors have clung to their idea that it was Turkey and that it came to Europe when farming was introduced about 8,500 years ago. This has led to disciplinary partisanship and hence the controversy. Asya Pereltsvaig and Martin W. Lewis outline the entire story and carefully review all of the facts for us in this illuminating book. Of particular importance is the demolishing of the germ hypothesis – that language spreads like disease and so diffusion is paramount and not movement of people. But there is much more to the story than that. If you have an interest in pre-history this book is for you.

⭐Drs. Pereltsvaig and Lewis have written a fascinating, approachable account of a conflict in the world of academic linguistics having to do with the appropriate use of computerized analysis vs. an historical and geographic understanding of the issues. Along the way, we learn how we know what we know about ancient languages. Highly recommended.

⭐Having expected a book aimed at interested onlookers, I was somewhat surprised when I realised that I’d bought a learned text book. I’m still reading it, and while lots of it go over my head, (the language used is very technical) I’m able to follow the gist and finding it quite an exciting read. I blame myself for the initial mistake. I should have realised that a book costing over £60 was not aimed at a mass market. But it’s still a good book.

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