Dixon's "The rise and fall of languages"

[manaster at umich.edu]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
To my mind the really objectionable part of
Dixon's argument is that he makes assertions
w/o any documentation, about topics such as
Nostratic, Australian-Pamanyungan (whose unity
was proven years ago by Ken Hale), and Niger-Congo
in particular.  This of course has become quite
common in our field, but that does not make it
right.  The right way to argue about language
families one does want to accept is to go
into the specifics and show what one perceives
to be the problem, as Doerfer has done for years
in his critiques of Altaic or as I did with
ZUni-Penutian or as Campbell has done in his
critiques of my Pakawan work.  I find it
completely icomprhensible that publishers
and editors publish and that readers take
seriously flat assertions like Dixon's
about the three families mentioned w/o
asking "Excuse me, sir, but where exactly
is your beef".  The same applies to Doerfer's
repeated offhand dismisslas of Afroasiatic
Uralic and in one place even of IE (which
contrast with his excellent record in arguing
against Altaic), to much if not all of Janhunen's
and certainly Krippes' critiques of Altaic.
 
I do not marvel that people write such
stuff, I do that they get published and
even applauded.
 
AMR