The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue

"Ruhlen is a leader in the new attempt to unify the theory of language development and diffusion."––Library Journal

"A powerful statement...also a wonderfully clear exposition of linguistic thinking about prehistory."––Anthropological Science

One of the world's foremost language researchers takes readers step-by-step through the hotly contested evidence that all modern languages derive from one "mother tongue" once spoken by primitive humans in Africa. With The Origin of Language, Merritt Ruhlen makes this fascinating science accessible to readers with no linguistic background.

MERRITT RUHLEN, PhD (Palo Alto, California) is the author of A Guide to the World's Languages

A world-class linguist demonstrates similarities among the globe's 5,000 languages to argue the case for a single, unifying Mother Tongue. Ruhlen (A Guide to the World's Languages, not reviewed) lets the lay reader share in the thrill of discovery with his hands-on lessons in classifying languages and reconstructing hypothetical proto-languages. A Stanford prot‚g‚ of controversial language- classification giant Joseph H. Greenberg (cited in the ample bibliography), the author aggressively takes on academic opponents who disdain comparative vocabulary studies in favor of regular sound correspondences in the establishment of language families. After the reader finds the cognate patterns among (unlabeled) words from different languages in a given table, the author lets us know that our findings would be rejected by the Indo-Europeanists who deny that Aryans have any linguistic relatives (read: No people of color need apply). With the help of global genetic studies, these old white racist farts are shown to be perpetuating ``one of the great hoaxes of twentieth-century science.'' While many of us can cheer that ``it's a small world after all,'' Ruhlen has his own tilt towards a pan-racial homeland in Africa. He thus parts with the well-publicized founders of Nostratic, the language superfamily that points to an origin in the Near East, where both the Bible (never mentioned here) and archaeology place the oldest talking humans. The reader does not get to hear or test theories on the whys and hows of linguistic diversity, but from Ruhlen's word tables, language trees, and maps there emerges a well-argued thesis against the Eurocentrists and for a monogenesis of language. A courageous, eloquent book of great significance to all who care about where we came from. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The study of linguistics has always been a good guidepost to research and studies in the other social sciences and humanities. Ruhlen (A Guide to the World's Languages, Stanford Univ. Pr., 1987) is a leader in the new attempt to write a unified theory of language development and diffusion. Starting with a do-it-yourself classification of language, he makes the case for one early language, using Joseph Greenberg's study of Native American languages as the key methodology in the reevaluation. He also cites the evidence in many fields pointing to an African development and then diffusion of Homo sapiens. An argumentative, controversial book but strongly reasoned and presented. Ruhlen explains the relationship among genetics, archaeology, and linguistic classification as an important new development in the study of prehistory and discusses the questions of the dating of early settlements in the Americas and Europe and the Banty Expansion. For informed lay readers.
Gene Shaw, NYPL
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Believing that doing is learning, Ruhlen encourages his readers to try their hand (and eye) at classifying languages. This exercise helps us appreciate the challenges inherent in the fascinating and controversial science of comparative linguistics. The theory behind this discipline states that languages evolve, travel, and interrelate. Working backward in time and history, Ruhlen describes the family of languages most familiar to his audience, the Indo-European, but soon has us scanning lists of words from a selection of African, Asian, and Native American tongues. Just as in a family tree, genetic linguistics links daughters to mothers to grandmothers, all the way back to prehistoric ancestors. At each crucial juncture, Ruhlen summarizes the pioneering work of linguists Sir William Jones, Joseph Greenberg, and Edward Sapir, each of whom discovered a protofamily at the root of hundreds of languages worldwide. The story of why these revelations were met with such resistance and resentment is a study in prejudice and close-mindedness. Ruhlen confidently concludes with a convincing argument for a common origin of all extant languages, whether that offends our cultural pride or not. Donna Seaman