<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=koi8-r">
<META content="MSHTML 5.50.3825.1300" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Subject : How natural and real are the language
families<BR>in the new book on world languages by April and Robert McMahon
"Language Classification by Numbers"?<BR>Dear colleagues in the field of
linguistics, I hope all the books are available for you. It is not so in my
case, unfortunately. I found some short information about the book by April
and Robert McMahon "Language <BR>Classification by Numbers". - Oxford: Oxford
University<BR>Press, 2005. I failed to get this book to read. This is <BR>why, I
can't say if I disagree or if I totally agree <BR>with the authors' analysis.
Does this book use any new<BR>numerical data, like the compactness?<BR>I wish
the authors would express some new ideas, <BR>certainly regarding the most
well-known taxa like <BR>Uralic (Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic), Indo-European, and
<BR>Altaic (Turkic, Mongolic and Tungus-Manchurian), <BR>especially. About other
language families I do not know<BR>that much however, having studied only of
them. In <BR>my personal opinion F-U and I-E are indeed some sort of
<BR>Sprachbund. I also wonder if you totally agree with <BR>the following
statement of mine: " though the <BR>fundamentals of the definitions of these
language families<BR>are rather weak and obsolete, they have never been
<BR>reconsidered. In physics, mathematics, chemistry, <BR>biology and other
natural sciences the fundamentals of <BR>classifications are analysed and
reconsidered by every <BR>generation of the scholars". I wrote my papers on
<BR>the classification of world languages from the point <BR>of view of
quantitative phonology and typology.<BR>I wonder how the current theories of
language taxa<BR>tested in this book. I wonder if this book formulates <BR>new
ideas and demonstrate new language taxa? I wonder <BR>if new convincing results
are produced? <BR>I wonder if there are many new publications <BR>which
prove on phonological or phonetical level that <BR>classically defined language
families and other language <BR>taxons are natural and real? I mean
Indo-European, <BR>Finno-Ugric, Samoyedic, Tungus-Manchirian, Mongolic, Turkic,
<BR>Paleo-Asiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, Afroasiatic and <BR>other
classically defined language families. It looks like <BR>some of them are not
very compact from the phono-typological <BR>point of view. It seems to me that
all the world linguists <BR>are quite happy with the defined language families,
though <BR>the fundamentals of these definitions are rather weak and
<BR>obsolete. The linguists do not want to trouble the <BR>"sleeping dogs". Why
is it so that in physics, <BR>mathemathics, chemistry, biology and other natural
<BR>sciences the fundamentals of classifications <BR>are analysed and
reconsidered by every generation of<BR>the scholars. Why it is Not so in
linguistics? Or may<BR>be I am not aware of such critical works, since US and
<BR>European linguistic journals are not available for me.<BR>I have calculated
the compactness of several language<BR>families from the typological point of
view <BR>and discovered that there is a great difference between <BR>them. The
most compact is the Mongolic language family Its <BR>dispersion is only 10.78%,
while the dispertion of the <BR>Tungus-Manchurian (18.60%) or Turkic (18.77%)
language <BR>families is greater. The dispersion of Finno-Ugric (24.14%) <BR>or
Indo-European (28.00%) language families is much greater. <BR>It may mean that
Finno-Ugric or Indo-European families are <BR>not natural and real families, but
some sort of <BR>conglomerations or Sprachbunds. Not to speak of the
<BR>dispersion of the Altaic (25.97%) or Uralic (28.31%) <BR>language unities
which should never be called language <BR>families if we consider a language
family some more compact <BR>language taxon. In this case, only Mongolic
language family <BR>seems to be natural and real. Should we consider the other
<BR>language families language unities or Sprachbunds? Or what? <BR>May be some
sparce language unions or language communities? <BR>Or what? Is it not the high
time to define language taxons: <BR>1) branch; <BR>2) subgroup;<BR>3)
grpoup;<BR>4) family;<BR>5) unity;<BR>6) union;<BR>7) filia;<BR>8)
community.<BR>Any other taxons?<BR>I wish you could send me your ideas about
language families <BR>and the other language taxons to my correct e-mail address
<BR><A href="mailto:yutamb@mail.ru">yutamb@mail.ru</A> Is it possible to publish
my article <BR>about it in some journal? I wonder if you could tell me<BR>more
details expressed in this new book "Language <BR>Classification by Numbers"
(2005)? How is the defusion<BR>of the world languages measured in the exact
numbers?<BR>Looking forward to hearing from <BR>you soon to <A
href="mailto:yutamb@mail.ru">yutamb@mail.ru</A> Your sincerely Yuri
<BR>Tambovtsev </FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>