The Origin of Language

Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue

What can the classification of languages tell us about human origins and human prehistory? This book presents a popular account of the origin of language. It is intended for an audience with no prior knowledge of comparative linguistics, genetics or archaeology. The present volume is a reprint of the 2009 second edition of the book, and includes the text of the first edition (1994) with minor modifications, as well as the scientific evidence for monogenesis, and a Postscript recounting developments in the field since the original publication of the book.

Be the first to review this product

Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC

Availability: In stock

SKU (ISBN): 978-1-4632-4495-8

Formats *
- Hardback (In Print) ISBN 978-1-4632-4495-8

Publication Status: In Print

Series: Harvard Oriental Series - Opera Minora14

Publication Date: Apr 25,2023

Interior Color: Black

Trim Size: 7 x 10

Page Count: 319

Languages: English

ISBN: 978-1-4632-4495-8

Price: $75.00 (USD)

Your price: $45.00 (USD)

Qty:

Ship to

Shipping Method

Name

Estimated Delivery

Price

No shipping options

This book, The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue, originally published in 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, was written in a more popular style, accessible to an educated general audience, than the more scholarly and academic tome of a similar title, On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy, published the same year. In The Origin of Language Ruhlen laid out the principles of linguistic genetic classification, i.e., classifying languages into families according to common origins rather than typological features. Ruhlen showed how simple this can be, especially for languages that have diverged for a few millennia, by juxtaposing short lists of basic (non-cultural) words like eye, fire, and tongue. He also showed that the same methods can be used to postulate older and deeper families, often called “macro-families” or “macrophyla,” by comparing reconstructed forms from lower-level families. Such deeper families (e.g., Nostratic, Dene-Caucasian, Nilo-Saharan, Austric) are generally more controversial than lower-level families, but Ruhlen did not shy from discussing them if he thought the evidence supported them. Ruhlen was also interested in other fields of anthropology, such as archaeology and human genetics, and brought these fields into play.

Overview
Reviews
Contact Us
About the Author
Table Of Contents

Your name *

Your email *

Subject: *

Enquiry *

	Contributor	Biography
	MerrittRuhlen	Merritt Ruhlen (1944–2021) was a linguist and anthropologist, well known for his books Guide to the World’s Languages, Vol. 1: Classification (1987), The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue (1994), On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy (1994), and numerous articles in journals, books, and encyclopedias. Ruhlen worked with Joseph H. Greenberg for three-and-a-half decades and became the principal advocate and defender of Greenberg’s methods of language classification. Ruhlen served as a lecturer in Anthropological Sciences and Human Biology at Stanford University, co-founder of the Evolution of Human Languages Project, advisor on the board of the Genographic Project, visiting professor at the City University of Hong Kong, and a Correspondant of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. After a long illness Ruhlen succumbed on January 29, 2021 in his home in Palo Alto, Calif.

Preface 2010 (vii)
Preface 1994 (ix)

Prologue: What Do We Mean by the Origin of Language? (1)
How, When and Where (2)
How Classification Proceeds (5)
Why Classification Succeeds (10)

1 Language and History: Voices from the Past (15)
European Languages (17)
Why Languages Change (26)

2 Language Families: What is Known (29)
African Languages (30)
Asian Languages (37)
Native American Languages (44)

3 Controversy: What is Debated (55)
Families of Families (56)
A History of Hysteria (67)

4 Native Americans: Language in the New World (73)
Families Where There Were No Families (74)
An Amerind Root and Its Progeny (82)
The Forest for the Trees (87)

5 The Origin of Language: Are There Global Cognates? (89)
The World’s Language Families (90)
AQ’WA ‘water’ (95)
TIK ‘finger, one’ (100)
PAL ‘two’ (104)
MAMA, PAPA, and KAKA (107)

6 A Window on the World: What Has Been Resolved (111)
Sanctity at All Costs (112)
Greenberg on the Griddle (114)
The Global Configuration (123)

7 Genes: Biology and Language (131)
Correlations on a Grand Scale (132)
Correlations on a Local Scale (141)

8 The Emerging Synthesis: On the Origin of Modern Humans (143)
An African Homeland? (144)
The Remnant Dene-Caucasians (146)
The Peopling of the Americas (147)
The Bantu Expansion (151)
The Austronesian Expansion (157)
The Indo-European Expansion (160)
The Origin and Spread of Modern Humans (168)

Epilogue: Reconstruction, Sound Correspondences, and Homelands (173)
Reconstruction (174)
Sound Correspondences (179)
Analogy (182)
Locating the Algonquian Homeland (184)

An Annotated Bibliography (191)

Appendices (201)
Twenty Seven Global Roots (203)
Postscript 2009 (243)

Index (285)

Customers who bought this item also bought

The Martyrdom of Mar Grigor Piran-Gušnasp and The Martyrdom of Mar Yazd-panah

In the mid-6th century, Grigor, the general of the Sasanian king’s armies and a converted from Zoroastrianism to Christianity, was put to death. This event brings about the conversion of several Zoroastrian notables such as Yazd-panāh, a judge who also died as a martyr three years later, and the courtier ʿAwira. The reign of King Khusrō I (531–579) was a key-chapter in the history of the Persian Empire, but also for the Church of the East, some members of which were involved in the Sasanian administration. These East-Syrian historical texts, which are among the few passions of this period in Syriac, have received little scholarly attention. This volume offers a critical text and commentary, as well as the first translation into English of these two martyr texts. Written by contemporaries, they provide valuable information regarding socio-religious life and the political context. They demonstrate how Persian Christians, despite sporadic persecution, were able to maintain a distinct identity while simultaneously acculturating to the norms of Iranian society.

$75.00 (USD) $45.00 (USD)

Shbītho

The Shbītho d-Dayroye is a thirteenth-century anthology dedicated to the personal prayer of monks and nuns. The collection comprises the writings of great saints in the Syriac Orthodox tradition including Ephrem the Syrian, Abraham Qidun, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, Philoxenos, Basil the Great, and Isaac the Syrian. For each of the seven daily prayer times (morning, third hour, noon, ninth hour, evening, and night), there is a main prayer and a closing prayer. The present edition is the first translation to make the spiritual treasures of the original Syriac text available to readers in English.

$45.00 (USD) $27.00 (USD)

The Prosperity of the Wicked

Does Job convincingly argue against a fixed system of just retribution by proclaiming the prosperity of the wicked—an assertion that distinctly runs contrary to traditional biblical and ancient Near Eastern wisdom? This study addresses this question, giving careful consideration to the rhetoric, imagery, and literary devices used to treat the issue of the fate of the wicked in Job’s first two rounds of dialogue, where the topic is predominantly disputed. The analysis will glean from related biblical and non-biblical texts in order to expose how Job deals with this fascinating subject and reveal the grandeur of the composition.

$114.95 (USD) $68.97 (USD)

Jacob of Sarug's Homily Concerning the Red Heifer and the Crucifixion of our Lord

Jacob of Sarug's homily on the red heifer slaughter ritual in Numbers 19. For Jacob, the narrative is a prefigurement of Christ's death and its ability to restore and permanently purify all who enter the church through baptism.

$28.00 (USD) $16.80 (USD)