"When Greenberg finished his first
classificatory sweep of Africa, he ended up with fouteen phyla. Of those, one
was AA [Afroasiatic]. One was N-C [Niger-Congo], which then had Kordofanian
joined to it. The fourth was Khoisan. All the rest, or 10 phyla of the first
classification, were put together as Nilo-Saharan. It represents far less
consensus, far less agreement on sub-grouping, and very little progress on
reconstruction."
[H.C. Fleming in his review of Ruhlen's
_Guide to the World's Languages_. _Diachronica_ 4, 1987.]
Fleming is an enthusiast of long-range
comparison and generally supports Greenberg's classification. Yet in the same
paragraph he notes that Nilo-Saharan has been called Greenberg's
waste-basket.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2002 9:35 PM
Subject: SV: [nostratic] Elamo-Dravidian and
Nilo-Saharan
> Nilo-Saharan (a very good established family
according
> to my teacher of Semitic Linguistic) is
impossible.
According to M. Lionel Bender in Heine/Nurse "African
Languages"
Nilo-Saharan
is the least widely accepted of the four phyla
proposed by Greenberg for
African languages.
best
wishes
Harald
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