From: Mark Odegard
Message: 1888
Date: 2000-03-17
From: Hakan LindgrenI've seen that some people, like Joseph H. Greenberg and Patrick C. Ryan, are trying to join all the language families of Earth into one single language tree. They say they will be able to tell how all languages are connected to each other and how they have developed out of one primordial language - they even claim that they can reconstruct the words of this first language. What is your opinion of this? Do you consider this to be real science or mere speculations
The methodology which conclusively proves proto-Indo-European existed as a real language is not the methodology used by Nostraticists.The conclusions of Greenberg, Ryan, and others, while not meritless, are at best learned conjectures. Greenberg and Ryan get a great deal of respect. Others, such as Ruhlen, are routinely dissed.