Pseudoscientific Language Comparison - Traits and Characteristics

Traits and Characteristics

There is no universal way to identify pseudoscientific language comparisons; indeed, it is not clear that all pseudoscientific language comparisons form a single group. However, the following characteristics tend to be more common among pseudoscientific theories (and their advocates) than among scientific ones:

• Failure to apply an accepted, or at least systematic, method to demonstrate regular correspondences between the languages. Unsystematic comparisons are effectively unfalsifiable.
• Failure to present grammatical evidence for relatedness: claims are based exclusively on word comparisons, even though in comparative linguistics grammatical evidence is also required to confirm relatedness.
• Arbitrary segmentation of compared forms: comparisons are based on the similarity of only a part of the words compared (usually the first syllable), whereas the rest of the word is ignored.
• Disregard for the effects of morphology on word structure: uninflected root forms may be compared with fully inflected forms, or marked forms may be used in preference to lesser- or unmarked forms.
• Severe lack of diligence, or competence in at least one of the languages compared, or in their historical development. For example, assigning of incorrect meanings, quoting of rare or even spurious lexemes, morphs or meanings or of obscure dialect forms, misinterpretation of explanations in linguistic literature, or failure to use well-known developments or facts into account. When forms and meanings are simply compiled and quoted from dictionaries (or even only a single source), inaccuracies creep in very easily. Even linguistically trained native speakers are not automatically experts in their own language, its dialectology and its history, and even professional linguists can impossibly be experts in large numbers of diverse languages and families, so consulting experts in the languages in question to help detect errors is urgently recommended.
• Failure to consider the possibility of borrowing. Neighboring languages may share much vocabulary and many grammatical features as a result of language contact, and adequate application of the comparative method is required to determine whether the similarities result from contact or from relatedness.
• Relying on typological similarities between languages: the morphological type of the language is claimed to provide evidence for relatedness, but in comparative linguistics only material parallels are accepted as evidence of a historical connection.
• Neglect of known history: present-day forms of words are used in comparisons, neglecting either the attested or the reconstructed history of the language in question, or words of varying time depths (such as current, archaic, and reconstructed words) and reliability of reconstruction are used interchangeably.
• Advocation of geographically far-fetched connections, such as comparing Finnish (in Finland) to Quechua (in Peru), or Basque (in Spain and France) to Ainu (in Japan), or Spanish (in Spain) to Japanese (in Japan). This criterion is only suggestive, though, as a long distance does not exclude the possibility of a relationship: English is demonstrably related to Hindi (in India), and Hawaiian to Malagasy (on Madagascar).
• Advocation of fanciful historical scenarios on the basis of the purported linguistic findings, e.g. claims of unknown civilizations or ancient migrations across oceans.
• Claims that the purported remote linguistic relationship is obvious and easy to perceive. A distant relationship between languages is usually not obvious on a superficial examination, and can only be uncovered via a successful application of the comparative method.
• Failure to submit results to peer reviewed linguistic journals.
• Assertion that criticism towards the theory is motivated by traditionalism, ideological factors or conspiracy on behalf of the linguistic community.