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The Indo-Semitic hypothesis maintains that a genetic relationship exists between
Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
and Semitic and that the Indo-European and the Semitic
language families A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...
descend from a prehistoric language ancestral to them both. The theory has never been widely accepted by contemporary linguists in modern times, but historically it had a number of supporting advocates and arguments, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries.


History of the term and of the idea

The term "Indo-Semitic" was first used by Graziadio Ascoli (Cuny 1943:1), a leading advocate of this relationship. Although this term has been used by a number of scholars since (e.g. Adams and Mallory 2006:83), there is no universally accepted term for this grouping at the present time. In German the term ''indogermanisch-semitisch'', 'Indo-Germanic–Semitic', has often been used (as by
Delitzsch Delitzsch (; Slavic: ''delč'' or ''delcz'' for hill) is a town in Saxony in Germany, 20 km north of Leipzig and 30 km east of Halle (Saale). With 24,850 inhabitants at the end of 2015, it is the largest town in the district of Nordsac ...
1873, Pedersen 1908), in which ''indogermanisch'' is a synonym of "Indo-European". Several phases in the development of the Indo-Semitic hypothesis can be distinguished.


A proposed relationship between Indo-European and Semitic

In a first phase, a few scholars in the 19th century argued that the
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
were related to the
Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant and ...
. The first to do so was
Johann Christoph Adelung Johann Christoph Adelung (8 August 173210 September 1806) was a German grammarian and philologist. Biography He was born at Spantekow, in Western Pomerania, and educated at schools in Anklam and Berge Monastery, Magdeburg, and the Universit ...
in his work ''Mithridates''. However, the first to do so in a scientific way was Richard Lepsius in 1836.Compare the leading specialist of
Afroasiatic The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...
Carleton T. Hodge (1998:318): "The positing of a genetic connection between Indo-European and Semitic goes back at least as far as Richard Lepsius (1836)".
The arguments presented for a relationship between Indo-European and Semitic in the 19th century were commonly rejected by Indo-Europeanists, including W.D. Whitney (1875) and
August Schleicher August Schleicher (; 19 February 1821 – 6 December 1868) was a German linguist. His great work was ''A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages'' in which he attempted to reconstruct the Proto-Indo-European languag ...
. The culmination of this first phase in Indo-Semitic studies was
Hermann Möller Hermann Möller (13 January 1850, in Hjerpsted, Denmark – 5 October 1923, in Copenhagen) was a Danish linguist noted for his work in favor of a genetic relationship between the Indo-European and Semitic language families and his version of ...
's comparative dictionary of Indo-European and Semitic, first published in Danish in 1909 (but usually cited in its German edition of 1911). A succinct history of the Indo-Semitic hypothesis is provided by Alan S. Kaye (1985:887) in a review of Allan Bomhard's ''Toward Proto-Nostratic'':


A larger grouping

In the mid-19th century, Friedrich Müller argued that the Semitic languages were related to a large group of African languages, which he termed
Hamitic Hamites is the name formerly used for some Northern and Horn of Africa peoples in the context of a now-outdated model of dividing humanity into different races which was developed originally by Europeans in support of colonialism and slavery. ...
. This implied a larger grouping, Indo-European—Hamito-Semitic. However, the concept of Hamitic was deeply flawed, relying in part on racial criteria rather than linguistic ones. In 1950,
Joseph Greenberg Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages. Life Early life and education Joseph Greenberg was born on M ...
showed that the Hamitic grouping needed to be split up, with only some of the languages it concerned groupable with Semitic. He named this greatly modified grouping
Afroasiatic The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...
. In principle, then, Indo-European—Hamito-Semitic was replaced by Indo-European—Afroasiatic. However, Greenberg also argued that the relevant question was not ''whether'' Indo-European was related to Afroasiatic but ''how'' it was related (2005:336-338). Did the two form a valid node in a family tree of languages, or were they only more distantly related, with many other languages in between? Since the 1980s, adherents of the controversial
Nostratic Nostratic is a controversial hypothetical macrofamily, which includes many of the indigenous language families of Eurasia, although its exact composition and structure vary among proponents. It typically comprises Kartvelian, Indo-European and ...
hypothesis, who accept a relationship between Indo-European and Afroasiatic, have begun to move away from the view that Indo-European and Afroasiatic share an especially close relationship, and to consider that they are only related at a higher level (ib. 332-333).


Continued comparison of Indo-European and Semitic

Although it might seem that the logical connection to pursue was that between Indo-European and Hamito-Semitic or, later, Indo-European and Afroasiatic (ib. 336), in practice scholars interested in this comparison continued to compare Indo-European and Semitic directly (e.g. Möller 1911, Cuny 1943, Bomhard 1975, Levin 1995). One reason for this seems to be that the study of Semitic had progressed far beyond that of "Hamitic" or, later, Afroasiatic. According to Albert Cuny (1943:2), who accepted the validity of the Hamito-Semitic grouping (ib. 3):


Direct comparison of Indo-European and Afroasiatic

A new departure was represented by the first installment of
Vladislav Illich-Svitych Vladislav Markovich Illich-Svitych (russian: Владисла́в Ма́ркович И́ллич-Сви́тыч, also transliterated as Illič-Svityč; September 12, 1934 – August 22, 1966) was a Soviet linguist and accentologist. He was a fo ...
's Nostratic dictionary in 1971, edited by
Vladimir Dybo Vladimir Antonovich Dybo (russian: Влади́мир Анто́нович Дыбо́; born 30 April 1931) is a Soviet and Russian linguist, Doctor Nauk in Philological Sciences (1979), Professor (1992), Academician of the Russian Academy of Scie ...
after Illich-Svitych's untimely death. Rather than comparing Indo-European to Semitic, Illich-Svitych compared it to Afroasiatic directly (Greenberg 2005:336), using his reconstruction of Afroasiatic phonology. This approach has been taken subsequently by other Nostraticists (e.g. Bomhard 2008).


Incorporation of Indo-European into a larger language family (Eurasiatic)

In the 1980s, some linguists, notably Joseph Greenberg and
Sergei Starostin Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (russian: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguist and philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothet ...
, began to identify Afroasiatic as a language family considerably more ancient than Indo-European, directly related not to Indo-European but to an earlier grouping from which Indo-European was descended, which Greenberg termed
Eurasiatic Eurasiatic is a proposed language macrofamily that would include many language families historically spoken in northern, western, and southern Eurasia. The idea of a Eurasiatic superfamily dates back more than 100 years. Joseph Greenberg's prop ...
. This view has been accepted by several Nostraticists, including Allan Bomhard (2008).


Conclusion

The Indo-Semitic hypothesis has thus undergone a
paradigm shift A paradigm shift, a concept brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn, is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. Even though Kuhn restricted t ...
. From Lepsius in 1836 through the mid-20th century, the question asked was whether Indo-European and Semitic are related or unrelated, and in attempting to answer this question Indo-European and Semitic were compared directly. This now appears naive, and the relevant units of comparison instead appear to be Eurasiatic and Afroasiatic, the immediate precursors of Indo-European (controversially) and Semitic (uncontroversially). This revised schema still has a long road to go if it is to win general acceptance from the linguistic community.


See also

*
Nostratic languages Nostratic is a controversial hypothetical macrofamily, which includes many of the indigenous language families of Eurasia, although its exact composition and structure vary among proponents. It typically comprises Kartvelian, Indo-European and ...
*
Afroasiatic languages The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...
*
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
*
Indo-Uralic languages Indo-Uralic is a controversial hypothetical language family consisting of Indo-European and Uralic. The suggestion of a genetic relationship between Indo-European and Uralic is often credited to the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1869 (P ...


References

* Adams, Douglas Q. and James Mallory. 2006. ''The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. * Greenberg, Joseph H. 1950. "Studies in African linguistic classification: IV. Hamito-Semitic". ''Southwestern Journal of Anthropology'' 6.1, 47–63. * Greenberg, Joseph H. 2005. ''Genetic Linguistics: Essays on Theory and Method'', edited by William Croft. Oxford: Oxford University Press. * Whitney, William Dwight. 1875. ''The Life and Growth of Language: An Outline of Linguistic Science.'' New York: D. Appleton & Co.


Bibliography of Indo-Semitic studies

*Abel, Carl. 1884. ''Einleitung in ein ägyptisch-semitisch-indoeuropäisches Wurzelwörterbuch.'' Leipzig. *Abel, Carl. 1889. ''Über Wechselbeziehungen der ägyptischen, indoeuropäischen und semitischen Etymologie I.'' Leipzig. *Abel, Carl. 1896. ''Ägyptisch und indogermanisch.'' Frankfurt. *Ascoli, Graziadio Isaia. 1864a. "Del nesso ario-semitico. Lettera al professore Adalberto Kuhn di Berlino." ''Il Politecnico'' 21:190–216. *Ascoli, Graziadio Isaia. 1864b. "Del nesso ario-semitico. Lettera seconda al professore Francesco Bopp." ''Il Politecnico'' 22:121–151. *Ascoli, Graziadio Isaia. 1867. "Studj ario-semitici." ''Memorie del Reale Istituto Lombardo'', cl. II, 10:1–36. *Bomhard, Allan R. 1975. "An outline of the historical phonology of Indo-European." ''Orbis'' 24.2:354-390. *Bomhard, Allan R. 1984. ''Toward Proto-Nostratic: A New Approach to the Comparison of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afroasiatic.'' Amsterdam: John Benjamins. *Bomhard, Allan R. 2008. ''Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic: Comparative Phonology, Morphology, and Vocabulary'', 2 volumes. Leiden: Brill. *Brunner, Linus. 1969. ''Die gemeinsam Wurzeln des semitischen und indogermanischen Wortschatzes.'' Bern: Francke. *Cuny, Albert. 1914. "Notes de phonétique historique. Indo-européen et sémitique." ''Revue de phonétique'' 2:101–132. *Cuny, Albert. 1924. ''Etudes prégrammaticales sur le domaine des langues indo-européennes et chamito-sémitiques.'' Paris: Champion. *Cuny, Albert. 1931. "Contribution à la phonétique comparée de l'indo-européen et du chamito-sémitique." ''Bulletin de la Société de linguistique'' 32:29–33. *Cuny, Albert. 1943. ''Recherches sur le vocalisme, le consonantisme et la formation des racines en « nostratique », ancêtre de l'indo-européen et du chamito-sémitique.'' Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve. *Cuny, Albert. 1946. ''Invitation à l'étude comparative des langues indo-européennes et des langues chamito-sémitiques.'' Bordeaux: Brière. *Delitzsch, Friedrich. 1873. ''Studien über indogermanisch-semitische Wurzelverwandtschaft.'' Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung. *Hodge, Carleton T. 1998
Review essay on ''Semitic and Indo-European: The Principal Etymologies, With Observations on Afro-Asiatic'' by Saul Levin.
''Anthropological Linguistics'' 40.2, 318–332. *Kaye, Alan S. 1985. Review of ''Toward Proto-Nostratic'' by Allan R. Bomhard (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1984). ''Language'' 61.4, 887–891. *Koskinen, Kalevi E. 1980. ''Nilal: Über die Urverwandtschaft des Hamito-Semitischen, Indogermanischen, Uralischen und Altäischen.'' Helsinki: Akateeminem Kirjakauppa. *Lepsius, (Karl) Richard. 1836. ''Zwei sprachvergleichende Abhandlungen. 1. Über die Anordnung und Verwandtschaft des Semitischen, Indischen, Äthiopischen, Alt-Persischen und Alt-Ägyptischen Alphabets. 2. Über den Ursprung und die Verwandtschaft der Zahlwörter in der Indogermanischen, Semitischen und der Koptischen Sprache.'' Berlin: Ferdinand Dümmler. *Levin, Saul. 1971. ''The Indo-European and Semitic Languages: An Exploration of Structural Similarities Related to Accent, Chiefly in Greek, Sanskrit, and Hebrew.'' State University of New York Press. *Levin, Saul. 1995. ''Semitic and Indo-European, Volume 1: The Principal Etymologies, With Observations on Afro-Asiatic.'' John Benjamins Publishing Company. *Levin, Saul. 2002. ''Semitic and Indo-European, Volume 2: Comparative Morphology, Syntax and Phonetics.'' John Benjamins Publishing Company. *McCurdy, James Frederick. 1881
''Aryo-Semitic Speech: A Study in Linguistic Archaeology.''
Andover: Warren F. Draper. *Möller, Hermann. 1906. ''Semitisch und Indogermanisch. Teil l. Konsonanten.'' (Only volume to appear of a projected longer work.) Kopenhagen: H. Hagerup, 1906. (Reprint: 1978. Hildesheim – New York: Georg Olms.) *Møller, Hermann. 1909. ''Indoeuropæisk–Semitik Sammenlignende Glossarium.'' Kjøbenhavn: Kjøbenhavns Universitet. *Möller, Hermann. 1911. ''Vergleichendes indogermanisch-semitisches Wörterbuch.'' Kopenhagen. (Reprint: 1970, reissued 1997. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. German edition of the previous.) *Möller, Hermann. 1917. ''Die semitisch-vorindogermanischen laryngalen Konsonanten.'' København: Andr. Fred. Høst. *Pedersen, Holger. 1908. "Die indogermanisch-semitische Hypothese und die indogermanische Lautlehre." ''Indogermanische Forschungen'' 22, 341–365. *Pedersen, Holger. 1931. ''Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century: Methods and Results'', translated from the Danish by John Webster Spargo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. *Raumer, Rudolf von. 1863. "Untersuchungen über die Urverwandtschaft der semitischen und indoeuropäischen Sprachen", in the author's ''Gesammelte Sprachwissenschafliche Abhandlungen'', pages 461-539. Frankfurt: Heyder und Zimmer. *Raumer, Rudolf von. 1864. ''Herr Professor Schleicher in Jena und Die Urverwandtschaft der semitischen und indoeuropäischen Sprachen. Ein kritisches Bedenken.'' Frankfurt: Heyder und Zimmer. *Raumer, Rudolf von. 1867. ''Fortsetzung der Untersuchungen über die Urverwandtschaft der semitischen und indoeuropäischen Sprachen.'' Frankfurt: Heyder und Zimmer. *Raumer, Rudolf von. 1868. ''Zweite Fortsetzung der Untersuchungen über die Urverwandtschaft der semitischen und indoeuropäischen Sprachen.'' Frankfurt: Heyder und Zimmer. *Raumer, Rudolf von. 1871. ''Dritte Fortsetzung der Untersuchungen über die Urverwandtschaft der semitischen und indoeuropäischen Sprachen.'' Frankfurt: Heyder und Zimmer. *Raumer, Rudolf von. 1873. ''Vierte Fortsetzung der Untersuchungen über die Urverwandtschaft der semitischen und indoeuropäischen Sprachen.'' Frankfurt: Heyder und Zimmer. *Raumer, Rudolf von. 1876. ''Sendschreiben an Herrn Professor Whitney über die Urverwandtschaft der semitischen und indogermanischen Sprachen.'' Frankfurt: Heyder und Zimmer. *Wüllner, Franz. 1838. ''Über die Verwandtschaft des Indogermanischen, Semitischen und Thibetanischen.'' Münster.


External links

*
Friedrich Delitzsch Friedrich Delitzsch (; 3 September 1850 – 19 December 1922) was a German Assyriologist. He was the son of Lutheran theologian Franz Delitzsch (1813–1890). Born in Erlangen, he studied in Leipzig and Berlin, gaining his habilitation in 1874 a ...
– German Wikipedia (includes bibliography) *
Rudolf von Raumer Rudolf von Raumer (14 April 1815, Breslau – 30 August 1876, Erlangen) was a German philologist and linguist, known for his extensive research of the German language. He was the son of geologist Karl Georg von Raumer. Biography He studied c ...
– German Wikipedia (includes bibliographical and biographical links) {{Eurasian languages Proposed language families