Borean (also Boreal or Boralean ) is a hypothetical (i.e. proposed) linguistic macrofamily that encompasses almost all language families worldwide except those native to the Americas , Africa , Oceania , and the Andaman Islands . Its supporters propose that the various languages spoken in Eurasia and adjacent regions have a genealogical relationship , and ultimately descend from languages spoken during the Upper Paleolithic in the millennia following the Last Glacial Maximum . The name Borean is based on the Greek βορέας , and means "northern". This reflects the fact that the group is held to include most language families that are native to the northern hemisphere . Two distinct models of Borean exist: that of Harold C. Fleming and that of Sergei Starostin .
31-798: The concept is due to Harold C. Fleming (1987), who proposed such a "mega-super-phylum" for the languages of Eurasia, termed Borean or Boreal in Fleming (1991) and later publications. In Fleming's model, Borean includes ten different groups: Afrasian (his term for Afroasiatic ), Kartvelian , Dravidian , a group comprising Sumerian , Elamitic , and some other extinct languages of the ancient Near East , Eurasiatic (a proposal of Joseph Greenberg that includes Indo-European , Uralic , Altaic , and several other language families), Macro-Caucasian (a proposal of John Bengtson that includes Basque and Burushaski ), Yeniseian , Sino-Tibetan , Na-Dene , and Amerind . In 2002, Fleming argued that there were not
62-526: A "phyletic chain" rather than a super-phylum. He notes that his model of Borean is similar to Morris Swadesh 's Vasco-Dene proposal, although he also sees similarities between Vasco-Dene and Dené–Caucasian . He sees Borean as closely associated with the appearance of the Upper Paleolithic in the Levant , Europe , and western Eurasia from 50 thousand to 45 thousand years ago, and observes that it
93-479: A daughter language of Proto- Nostratic but from a sister language of it. In other words, Sumerian descended from an older common ancestor language with Proto-Nostratic and did not descend directly from it; that is, Sumerian was closer to Nostratic but not a member of it. Bomhard argues that Kartvelian is closer to Eurasiatic than to other language families within Nostratic and that the differences are due to
124-592: A speculative level, they maintain that the numerous morphemic similarities between language families of Eurasia, many of which Sergei Starostin compiled into a special database that he later supplemented by his own findings, are unlikely to be due to chance, making it possible to formulate a Borean super-superfamily hypothesis. They have also suggested possible links between 'Borean' and other families. In their view comparisons with 'Borean' data suggest that Khoisan cannot be included within it but that more distant connections on an even deeper level might be possible, that how
155-756: A two large super-phyla distinction between a Nostratic and a Dené–Caucasian taxon among Borean languages, and that the language kinship between its branches is possibly more complex than a Nostratic versus a Dené–Caucasian super-phyla. However, in 2013, Fleming had changed his view about this issue in a joint article with Stephen L. Zegura , James B. Harrod , John D. Bengtson and Shomarka O.Y. Keita – "The Early Dispersions of Homo Sapiens sapiens and proto-Human from Africa." in Mother Tongue , issue XVIII, p. 143–188, 2013, where he argues that Nostratic and Dene-Caucasian as language phyla within Borean
186-399: A unified view of human prehistory . Fleming was also a strong supporter of the sometimes controversial proposals of Joseph Greenberg , emphasizing the success of Greenberg's classification of "1500 [African] languages into four large taxa where almost all have stayed ever since" (Fleming 2000-2001). In 1986, Fleming met the young members of the " Moscow Circle " of historical linguists. He
217-729: Is a discredited language family proposal that includes widely-separated language groups spoken in the Northern Hemisphere: Sino-Tibetan languages , Yeniseian languages and Burushaski in Asia; Na-Dené languages in North America; as well as Vasconic languages (including Basque ) and North Caucasian languages from Europe. A narrower connection specifically between North American Na-Dené and Siberian Yeniseian (the Dené–Yeniseian languages hypothesis)
248-482: Is a hypothesis that is well grounded and convincing. Fleming writes that his work on Borean is inspired by Joseph Greenberg 's exploration of Eurasiatic , and is oriented towards the concept of "valid taxon". He rejects Nostratic , a proposed macrofamily somewhat broader than Eurasiatic , and withholds judgment on Dené–Caucasian , a proposal that would encompass Sino-Tibetan , Yeniseian , Basque , and several other language families and isolates. Fleming calls Borean
279-855: Is as follows: A computational phylogenetic analysis by Jäger (2015) did not support the Borean macrophylum in its entirety, but provided the following phylogeny of language families in Eurasia: Yeniseian Dravidian Nakh-Daghestanian Austroasiatic Japonic Ainu Sino-Tibetan Hmong-Mien Austronesian Tai-Kadai Tungusic Mongolic Turkic Yukaghir Nivkh Uralic Chukotko-Kamchatkan Indo-European Allan Bomhard argues that Sumerian did not descend from
310-624: Is divided into two groups, Nostratic ( sensu lato , consisting of Eurasiatic and Afroasiatic ) and Dene–Daic , the latter consisting of the Dené–Caucasian and Austric macrofamilies. Starostin tentatively dates the Borean proto-language to the Upper Paleolithic, approximately 16 thousand years ago. Starostin's model of Borean would thus include most languages of Eurasia , as well as the Afroasiatic languages of North Africa and
341-717: Is impossible to apply the strict comparative method to even older and larger groups. However, they consider this only a technical rather than a theoretical problem, and reject the idea that linguistic relationships further back in time than 10,000 years before the present cannot be reconstructed, since the "main objects of research in this case are not modern languages, but reconstructed proto-languages which turn out to be more similar to one another than their modern day descendants". They believe that good reconstructions of superfamilies such as Eurasiatic will eventually help in investigating still deeper linguistic relationships. While such 'ultra-deep' relationships can currently be discussed only on
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#1732764900790372-524: Is primarily associated with human populations of Caucasoid and Northern Mongoloid physical appearance, the exceptions being southern India , southern China , southwestern Ethiopia , northern Nigeria , and the Chad Republic . The phylogenetic composition of Borean (noncommital about higher linkages within the whole) according to Fleming, Bengtson, Zegura, Harrod, and Keita (2013) is as follows: As envisaged by Sergei Starostin (2002), Borean
403-578: The Vasconic languages (including Basque, its extinct relative or ancestor Aquitanian , and possibly Iberian ), and in 1997 he proposed the inclusion of Burushaski . The same year, in his article for Mother Tongue , Bengtson concluded that Sumerian might have been a remnant of a distinct subgroup of the Dené–Caucasian languages. In 1998, Vitaly V. Shevoroshkin rejected the Amerind affinity of
434-659: The "Long Range Comparison Club" was legally incorporated as the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory (ASLIP). Fleming has served as President of ASLIP (1988–1996), Secretary-Treasurer (1996–98), and Vice President and Acting Treasurer (2004–present). ASLIP's mission is "to encourage international, interdisciplinary information sharing, discussion, and debate among biogeneticists, paleoanthropologists, archaeologists, and historical linguists on questions relating to
465-675: The African superfamilies Niger–Congo , East Sudanic , Central Sudanic and Kordofanian are related to Borean remains to be investigated, that the situation with the native languages of the Americas remains unresolved, and that while there are some lexical similarities between Borean and the Trans–New Guinea languages , these remain too scarce to establish a firm connection. They comment that while preliminary data indicates possible connections between Borean and some superfamilies from Africa,
496-524: The Almosan ( Algonquian-Wakashan ) languages, suggesting instead that they had a relationship with Dené–Caucasian. Several years later, he offered a number of lexical and phonological correspondences between the North Caucasian, Salishan , and Wakashan languages , concluding that Salishan and Wakashan may represent a distinct branch of North Caucasian and that their separation from it must postdate
527-554: The Americas, and the Indo-Pacific region further research is needed to determine whether these additional superfamilies are related to Borean or unidentified branches of it. Gell-Mann et al. note that their proposed model of Borean differs significantly from that of Fleming. Sergei Starostin died prematurely in 2005 and his hypothesis remains in a preliminary form, with much of the material he collected available online. The phylogenetic composition of Borean according to Starostin
558-636: The Basque-Dennean hypothesis to Edward Sapir . In the 1980s, Sergei Starostin , using strict linguistic methods (proposing regular phonological correspondences , reconstructions , glottochronology , etc.), became the first to put the idea that the Caucasian, Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan languages are related on firmer ground. In 1991, Sergei L. Nikolaev added the Na-Dené languages to Starostin's classification. In 1996, John D. Bengtson added
589-680: The Horn of Africa, and the Eskimo–Aleut and the Na-Dene languages of the New World . Murray Gell-Mann , Ilia Peiros , and Georgiy Starostin maintain that the comparative method has provided strong evidence for some linguistic superfamilies ( Dené-Caucasian and Eurasiatic ), but not so far for others ( Afroasiatic and Austric ). Their view is that since some of these families have not yet been reconstructed and others still require improvement, it
620-620: The cultures and languages of the Horn of Africa . As an adherent of the Four Field School of American anthropology, he stressed the integration of physical anthropology , linguistics , archaeology , and cultural anthropology in solving anthropological problems. Fleming was motivated by the civil rights movement early in his life, and committed the rest of his life to studies to promote equal opportunity. Since 1965, Fleming had been affiliated with Boston University , continuing to
651-569: The dissolution of the Northeast Caucasian unity (Avar-Andi-Tsezian), which took place around the 2nd or 3rd millennium BC. The Dené–Caucasian family tree and approximate divergence dates (estimated by modified glottochronology ) proposed by S. A. Starostin and his colleagues from the Tower of Babel project: John D. Bengtson groups Basque, Caucasian and Burushaski together in a Macro-Caucasian (earlier Vasco-Caucasian ) family (see
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#1732764900790682-545: The emerging synthesis on language origins and ancestral human spoken languages." Since 1995, ASLIP has published the journal Mother Tongue . A festschrift honoring Fleming was published in 2008. In this volume, there are sections that reflect Fleming's wide interests, including languages and cultures in Africa, "Languages of Eurasia, Oceania, and the Americas", and "Human origins, Language origins, and Proto-Sapiens language". Den%C3%A9%E2%80%93Caucasian Dené–Caucasian
713-468: The enigmatic Shabo (2002) and Ongota (2006). Early in his career, Fleming published a paper (Fleming 1969) that outlined an important taxonomic proposal, claiming that what had up to then been known as the "Western Cushitic " language family was not a part of Cushitic at all, but instead makes up a sixth primary branch of Afroasiatic , for which he coined the name Omotic . The proposal has since been widely but not universally accepted. He continued in
744-548: The fact that Kartvelian became separated from Eurasiatic at a very early date. Linguist Asya Pereltsvaig states in Languages of the World: An Introduction that both versions of the Borean hypothesis are "controversial and tentative". Harold C. Fleming Harold Crane Fleming (December 23, 1926 – April 29, 2015) was an American anthropologist and historical linguist specializing in
775-410: The followers of Sergei Starostin and those of Joseph Greenberg ), (2) Dravidian , which is classed as Nostratic by Starostin's school, and (3) Austronesian (which according to Starostin is indeed related to Dené–Caucasian, but only at the next stage up, which he termed Dené–Daic, and only via Austric (see Starostin's Borean macrofamily ). Swadesh's colleague Mary Haas attributes the origin of
806-773: The members of Dené–Caucasian in a family that he called "Basque-Dennean" (when writing in English, 2006/1971: 223) or " vascodene " (when writing in Spanish, 1959: 114). It was named for Basque and Navajo , the languages at its geographic extremes. According to Swadesh (1959: 114), it included "Basque, the Caucasian languages, Ural-Altaic, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Chinese, Austronesian, Japanese, Chukchi (Siberia), Eskimo-Aleut, Wakash, and Na-Dene", and possibly "Sumerian". Swadesh's Basque-Dennean thus differed from Dené–Caucasian in including (1) Uralic, Altaic, Japanese, Chukotian, and Eskimo-Aleut (languages which are classed as Eurasiatic by
837-652: The present as Research Fellow in the African Studies Center and Emeritus Professor of Anthropology. He conducted extensive field work in Northeast Africa , mostly in Ethiopia . Using data from field work by himself and others, Fleming studied and published touching each of the four language groupings in Ethiopia : Semitic , Cushitic (1976), Omotic (1969, 1970), and Nilo-Saharan , plus
868-507: The section on Macro-Caucasian below). According to him, it is as yet premature to propose other nodes or subgroupings, but he notes that Sumerian seems to share the same number of isoglosses with the (geographically) western branches as with the eastern ones: John Bengtson (2008) proposes that, within Dené–Caucasian, the Caucasian languages form a branch together with Basque and Burushaski, based on many shared word roots as well as shared grammar such as: George van Driem has proposed that
899-430: The vein of solving taxonomic problems involving the languages spoken in Africa and worldwide (Fleming 1976, 1987, 1988, 1991, 2002, 2006, etc.). Fleming was a vocal advocate of, and practitioner in, the effort to extend the application of historical linguistic methods as far as possible into the past. He recommended integrating its results with those of physical anthropology, genetics , and archaeology, in order to produce
930-502: Was deeply impressed by the long-range linguistic probing of scholars in Moscow who were trying to extend genetic taxonomy of human languages beyond the levels achieved in the 1950s and 1960s. In the fall of 1986, Fleming began circulating letters to linguists and anthropologists outside of Russia . By the fourth issue (November 1987), the newsletter had acquired a more formal appearance and the name Mother Tongue . In 1989, what had been
961-568: Was proposed by Edward Vajda in 2008, and has met with some acceptance within the community of professional linguists. The validity of the rest of the family, however, is viewed as doubtful or rejected by nearly all historical linguists . Classifications similar to Dené–Caucasian were put forward in the 20th century by Alfredo Trombetti , Edward Sapir , Robert Bleichsteiner , Karl Bouda , E. J. Furnée , René Lafon , Robert Shafer, Olivier Guy Tailleur , Morris Swadesh , Vladimir N. Toporov , and other scholars. Morris Swadesh included all of