Arabic and IE

[bwald]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>I enjoyed Alice Faber's message criticising the supposed relationship of
>"Semitic to Indo-E".  In essence, her comments indicate that the wording
>of such a proposed relationship is as misleading as proposing a
>"relationship" between "AFRO-ASIATIC and GERMANIC".  While I admire AMR's
>energy and industry in pursuit of countless issues in historical
>linguistics, I find it inconsistent that he deplores the rhetoric which
>states "there IS NO relationship between Semitic and IE" rather than the
>more accurate statement "NO demonstration of a relationship between
>Semitic and IE is GENERALLY ACCEPTED (? by those qualified to accept
>such)", or innumerable paraphrases of the same, at the same time that he
>is lenient about the wording of the "Semitic-IE relationship".  Within the
>field (as opposed to public relations), the rhetoric of "there is NO
>relationship" is readily understood under the GENERALLY ACCEPTED principle
>of historical linguists that a relationship has to be demonstrated, NOT
>the lack of one ("unrelated until demonstrated").  No one denies that; at
>best they disagree about what it takes to demonstrate a relationship (I
>guess I mean a GENETIC relationship, at that).
>
>Alice's counter that AFRO-ASIATIC MAY be more closely related to
>NILO-SAHARAN than to INDO-E is instructive at least for its shock value --
>and it makes geographic sense -- though I would hope that there is more to
>such a speculation than the fact that some border Ethiopian languages
>exhibit "ambiguity" as to whether they should classified as Afrasian or
>Nilo-Saharan (convergence!?).
>
>I particularly enjoyed her closing comments:
>
>>Furthermore, and now I'm speculating wildly, if I were seriously interested in
>>linking Afro-Asiatic with other language stocks, Indo-European, or, indeed,
>>any other Eurasian language stock, is *not* where I would look first. Rather,
>>I would look seriously at Nilo-Saharan. I fear that at least some of the
>>interest, especially from non-specialists, in relating Semitic and
>>Indo-European is motivated by a notion of "Judeo-Christian cultural
>>tradition" that may, itself, not be supported by the historical record.
>
>It reminds me of a joke I made (I forget whether on this list or
>elsewhere) relating "Nostratic" to "Cosa Nostra", as the "Western
>Civilisation mafia".  Slightly more seriously, the proposal of a
>relationship of Semitic to I-E (inter alia) predates recognition of
>Semitic as part of a larger mainly African-based Afro-Asiatic family.
>Politically it could have even been "brave" to propose such a thing at a
>time and place when there were opposing racist Nazoid theories insisting
>on the primeval distinctness of "Aryan" (Indo-GERMANIC) from "Semitic",
>and I think Alice is quite right to insinuate that Nostratic was, in
>contrast, a "philo-Semitic" theory seeking to identify Indo-European with
>Semitic because of the recognised (though belated) impact of Semitic
>culture on "Western civilisation".  That has no bearing on whether it is
>scientifically true or not; it is politics.  I can imagine, then, that an
>enterprising scientific journalist could make  headlines (of a sort), even
>in this day and age, if it turned out to be tenable that Afro-Asiatic
>(i.e., "Semitic") is a part of a larger AFRICAN family which includes
>NILO-SAHARAN sooner than that it is related to the I-E languages, given
>how cherished the Semitic heritage of Western culture is, and how strong
>the feeling is to identify with that heritage (as opposed to an African
>heritage, which is OK only as long as it is pre-homo sapiens.)
>