Comparative Linguistics - Pseudolinguistic Comparisons

Pseudolinguistic Comparisons

Comparative linguistics includes the study of the historical relationships of languages using the comparative method to search for regular (i.e. recurring) correspondences between the languages' phonology, grammar and core vocabulary, and through hypothesis testing Template:Which ones; some persons with little or no specialization in the field sometimes attempt to establish historical associations between languages by noting similarities between them, in a way that is considered pseudoscientific by specialists (e.g. African/Egyptian comparisons). To the astute multi-linguist who has studied many foreign languages, there is a discernible contrast between "lingusistics" and actual "foreign language" study. Many languages do contain cross-correlations that exist. To some who study "linguistics", they feel that a common method is used by a casual observer that is applied in language comparisons to search two or more languages for words that seem similar in their sound and meaning. "Linguists", vs. multi-languists, are not very familiar with the cultural and other nuances contained in many languages, therefore many "linguists" are unable to understand the cross correlations between words and word origins, specifically because they are not well versed in several languages, completely failing to understad the linguistic nuances of foreign languages that are attached to a particular culture. First, the method applied is not well-defined: the criterion of similarity is subjective and thus not subject to verification or falsification, which is contrary to the principles of the scientific method. Second, the large size of all languages' vocabulary and a relatively limited inventory of articulated sounds used by most languages makes it easy to find coincidentally similar words between languages.

There are sometimes political or religious reasons for associating languages in ways that some linguists would dispute. For example, it has been suggested that the Turanian or Ural–Altaic language group, which relates Sami and other languages to the Mongolian language, was used to justify racism towards the Sami in particular. There are also strong, albeit areal not genetic, similarities between the Uralic and Altaic languages which provided an innocent basis for this theory. Some believers in Abrahamic religions try to derive their native languages from Classical Hebrew, as Herbert W. Armstrong, a proponent of British Israelism, who said that the word 'British' comes from Hebrew brit meaning 'covenant' and ish meaning 'man', supposedly proving that the British people are the 'covenant people' of God. And Lithuanian-American archaeologist Marija Gimbutas argued during the mid-1900s that Basque is clearly related to the extinct Pictish and Etruscan languages, in attempt to show that Basque was a remnant of an "Old European culture". In the Dissertatio de origine gentium Americanarum (1625), the Dutch lawyer Hugo Grotius proves that the American Indians (Mohawks) speak a language (lingua Maquaasiorum) derived from Scandinavian languages (Grotius was on Sweden's payroll), supporting Swedish colonial pretensions in America. Hilaire de Barenton proved that Turkish is the mother of languages (Sun Language Theory), in support of Kemal Atatürk's nationalism.

The Dutch doctor Johannes Goropius Becanus, in his Orgines Antverpiana (1580) admits Quis est enim qui non amet patrium sermonem (who does not love his fathers' tongue ?), whilst asserting that Hebrew is derived from Dutch - a claim considered so ridiculous that Leibniz coined the term "goropism" to mean "absurd etymology". A French Éloi Johanneau claim in 1818 (Mélanges d'origines étymologiques et de questions grammaticales) that the Celtic language is the oldest, and the mother of all others.
In 1759, Joseph de Guignes theorized(Mémoire dans lequel on prouve que les Chinois sont une colonie égyptienne) that Chinese and Egyptian were related. In 1885, Edward Tregear (the Aryan Maori) compared Maori and Aryan languages. Also related (according to Jean Prat, in his 1941 Les langues Nitales) are the Bantu languages of Africa and Latin. Just like frogs' quacking, which, compared to French, provided - according to Jean-Pierre Brisset (La Grande Nouvelle, around 1900) the assertion that humans descended from the frog, by linguistic means.