Introduction

How are languages shown to be related to one another? How are language families established? Judging from media attention, it might be thought that this is one of the “hottest” questions in contemporary linguistics. Proposals of distant linguistic kinship such as Amerind, Nostratic, Eurasiatic, and Proto-World have been featured in Atlantic Monthly, Nature, Science, Scientific American, US News and World Report, The New York Times, and in BBC and PBS television documentaries. Nevertheless, these same proposals have been rejected by the majority of practicing historical linguists. The difference of opinion is reflected in much debate and considerable confusion about the methods for demonstrating family (phylogenetic) relationships among languages as yet not known to be related, and about the ways that language families have come to be established. Some enthusiasts of long-range linguistic relationships, disappointed that proposed language connections they favor have not been accepted in the profession, have at times responded bitterly. For example, we read charges that these rejections are just “clumsy and dishonest attempts to discredit deep reconstructions [proposed macro-families]” (Shevoroshkin 1989a:7, also 1989b:4).