The following is a list of proposed language families, which connect established families into larger genetic groups (macro-families). Support for these proposals vary from case to case. For example, the Dené–Yeniseian languages are a recent proposal which has been generally well received, whereas reconstructions of the Proto-World language are often viewed as fringe science. Proposals which are themselves based on other proposals have the likelihood of their parts noted in parentheses.
Under considerations
| Proposed name | Proposal | Agree | Disagree | Doubt | Ref. |
| Alarodian | | Igor M. Diakonoff (initiator), Sergei Starostin, Petri Kallio | Johanna Nichols, Allan R. Bomhard | | |
| Austric | | Wilhelm Schmidt (initiator), La Vaughn H., Lawrence Reid, G. Diffloth, Paul Sidwell, Paul K. Benedict (later rejected), Sergei Starostin, John Bengtson, ASJP | | Robert Blust, Paul K. Benedict | [1][2][3] |
| | Wilhelm Schmidt (initiator) | |
| | Paul K. Benedict (initiator, later rejected), Sergei Starostin, John Bengtson | |
| | John Bengtson (initiator) | |
| Austro-Tai | | Paul Benedict (initiator, also including Japanese), Ostapirat, Smith | Thurgood | Sagart | [4] |
| Aztec–Tanoan | | | | | |
| Chukotko-Kamchatkan–Amuric | | | | | |
| Dené–Yeniseian | | Alfredo Trombetti (initiator), Merritt Ruhlen, Edward Vajda, Michael Krauss, Jeff Leer, James Kari, Heinrich Werner, Bernard Comrie, Johanna Nichols, Victor Golla, Michael Fortescue, Eric Hamp, Bill Poser, and Paul Kiparsky | Georgiy Starostin (Vajda's proposal) | | [5] |
| Gulf | | | | | |
| Hokan | | | | | |
| Indo-Uralic | | Holger Pedersen (initiator), Kortlandt, Hannes Sköld, Alwin Kloekhorst, and Nikolai Dmitrievich Andreev | Christian Carpelan, Asko Parpola, Petteri Koskikallio, Angela Marcantonio, and Johan Schalin | | [6] |
| | Kortlandt (initiator) | | [7] |
| Je–Tupi–Carib | | | | | |
| Karasuk | | | | | |
| Macro-Chibchan | | | | | |
| Macro-Pama–Nyungan | | | | | |
| Macro-Panoan | | | | | |
| Macro-Siouan | | | | | |
| Mataco–Guaicuru | | | | | |
| Miao–Dai | | Ryuichi Kosaka (initiator) | | | [8] |
| Niger–Congo | | | | | |
| Nilo-Saharan | | | | | |
| North Caucasian | | | | | |
| Penutian | | | | | |
| Pontic | | Émile Benveniste, Winfred P. Lehmann, Aert Kuipers, and John Colarusso | | | [9] |
| Quechumaran | | | | | |
| Serbi–Mongolic | | | | | |
| Sino-Austronesian | | Laurent Sagart (initiator), Stanley Starosta | Weera Ostapirat, Alexander Vovin, George van Driem | Paul Jen-kuei Li and Robert Blust | [10][11] |
| Totozoquean | | | | | |
| Uralic–Yukaghir | | | | | |
| Uralo-Siberian | | Michael Fortescue (initiator), Frederik Kortlandt | | | [12] |
| | Frederik Kortlandt (initiator) | | | [13] |
| Yok-Utian | | Geoffrey Gamble(initiator), Catherine Callaghan | | | |
Widely rejected
Below are language families that are already rejected by most linguists. As they are widely rejected, only linguists who agree are shown.
| Proposed name | Description | Status | Agree | Ref. |
| Almosan | Algic, Kutenai and Mosan | Widely rejected | Joseph Greenberg, Georgiy Starostin, Ilia Peiros, Murray Gell-Mann | |
| Amerind | All languages in the Americas which do not belong to the Eskimo–Aleut or Na–Dene families | Widely rejected | Joseph Greenberg (initiator), Merritt Ruhlen | |
| Altaic | Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic and Japonic (and possibly Ainu) | Widely rejected; generally considered a Sprachbund | Georgiy Starostin, Sergei Starostin, Frederik Kortlandt | |
| Austronesian–Ongan | Ongan and Austronesian | Widely rejected | Juliette Blevins (initiator) | [14] |
| Borean | All families except in sub-Saharan Africa, New Guinea, Australia, and the Andaman Islands | Widely rejected | Harold C. Fleming (initiator), Sergei Starostin, Murray Gell-Mann, John Bengtson | |
| Coahuiltecan | Native languages of modern Texas | Sprachbund | | |
| Dene–Caucasian | Na-Dené, North Caucasian, Sino-Tibetan, Yeniseian, and others. | Widely rejected | Sergei Starostin, John Bengtson | |
| Dravido-Korean | Dravidian and Koreanic | Obsolete | Susumu Ōno | |
| Elamo-Dravidian | Elamite and Dravidian | Widely rejected | David W. McAlpin, Franklin Southworth | |
| Eurasiatic | Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic | Widely rejected | Mark Pagel, Joseph Greenberg, Merritt Ruhlen | |
| Ibero-Caucasian | Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian, Northeast Caucasian | Widely rejected | Arnold Chikobava (Initiator) | |
| Indo-Pacific | Several Pacific families. | Widely rejected | Joseph Greenberg (initiator) | |
| Indo-Semitic | Indo-European languages and Semitic languages or Afroasiatic languages | Widely rejected | Graziadio Isaia Ascoli (initiator) | |
| Khoisan | African click-consonant languages that do not belong to any other macrophyla | Widely rejected | Joseph Greenberg (initiator) | |
| Macro-Mayan | Mayan with Totonacan, Mixe–Zoque, and Huave | Widely rejected | | |
| Mosan | Salishan, Wakashan, and Chimakuan languages of Pacific Northwest North America | Sprachbund | | |
| Nostratic | Afroasiatic, Kartvelian, Dravidian and Eurasiatic | Widely rejected | Vladimir Dybo | |
| Ural–Altaic | Uralic and Altaic | Obsolete; considered a linguistic convergence zone | | |
| Sino-Uralic | Uralic, Sinitic | Widely rejected | Jingyi Gao (initiator) | |
See also
References
- ^ Grierson, G. A. (January 1907). "Die Mon-Khmer-Völker, Ein Bindeglied Zwischen Völkern Zentralasiens und Austronesiens. By P. W. Schmidt, S.V.D. Reprinted from Archiv für Anthropologie, Neue Folge, Band v, Heft 1 u. 2. (Brunswick, 1906.)". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. 39 (1): 187–191. doi:10.1017/s0035869x00035711. ISSN 0035-869X. S2CID 163114228.
- ^ "Alphabetisches Verzeichnis der vorkommenden Sprachen und Dialekte", Die westlichen Sudansprachen und ihre Beziehungen zum Bantu, Berlin, Boston: DE GRUYTER, 1927, doi:10.1515/9783111390192-003, ISBN 9783111390192, retrieved 9 January 2023
- ^ Benedict, Paul K. (12 October 1942). "Thai, Kadai, and Indonesian: A New Alignment in Southeastern Asia". American Anthropologist. 44 (4): 576–601. doi:10.1525/aa.1942.44.4.02a00040.
- ^ Smith, Alexander (2022-01-28). Alves, Mark; Sidwell, Paul (eds.). "More Austro-Tai Comparisons and Observations on Vowel Correspondences". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society: Papers from the 30th Conference of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (2021). 15 (3): 112–134. doi:10.5281/zenodo.5781307. ISSN 1836-6821. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
- ^ Starostin, George (2012). "Dene-Yeniseian: a critical assessment". p. 137
- ^ Aikio, Ante (January 2022). "Proto-Uralic". In Bakró-Nagy, Marianne; Laakso, Johanna; Skribnik, Elena (eds.). Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Kortlandt, Frederik (2004). "NIVKH AS A URALO-SIBERIAN LANGUAGE". researchgate.net.
- ^ Kosaka, Ryuichi (2002). "On the affiliation of Miao-Yao and Kadai: Can we posit the Miao-Dai family?" (PDF). Mon-Khmer Studies. 32: 71–100.
- ^ Colarusso, John (1997). "Proto-Pontic: Phyletic links between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Northwest Caucasian". Journal of Indo-European Studies. 25: 119–51.
- ^ Sagart, L. (1990) "Chinese and Austronesian are genetically related". Paper presented at the 23rd International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, October 1990, Arlington, Texas.
- ^ Sagart, Laurent (2016). "The wider connections of Austronesian: A response to Blust (2009)". Diachronica. 33 (2): 255–281. doi:10.1075/dia.33.2.04sag.
- ^ Fortescue, Michael (2011). "The relationship of Nivkh to Chukotko-Kamchatkan revisited". Lingua. 121 (8): 1359–1376. doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2011.03.001.
I would no longer wish to relate CK directly to [Uralo-Siberian], although I believe that some of the lexical evidence [...] will hold up in terms of borrowing/diffusion.
- ^ Kortlandt, Frederik (2004). "NIVKH AS A URALO-SIBERIAN LANGUAGE". researchgate.net.
- ^ van Driem, George (2011). "Rice and the Austroasiatic and Hmong-Mien homelands". In N.J Enfield (ed.). Dynamics of human diversity: the case of mainland Southeast Asia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Retrieved 13 November 2021.