Amerind as a macro-family of the Americas

E247238

Amerind as a macro-family of the Americas is a controversial linguistic hypothesis that groups most Indigenous languages of the Americas into a single, large language family.

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All labels observed (1)

Label Occurrences
Amerind as a macro-family of the Americas canonical 1

Statements (46)

Predicate Object
instanceOf linguistic hypothesis
proposed language macro-family
acceptedBy few historical linguists
aimsToUnify numerous established Native American language families
associatedWith Greenberg's classification of Native American languages
basedOn mass lexical comparison
characterizedAs controversial
classificationLevel macro-family
continentScope Americas
contrastsWith multi-family models of American Indigenous languages
controversyFocus reliability of proposed cognate sets
treatment of loanwords and onomatopoeia
validity of long-range comparison
criticizedFor inadequate control of chance resemblances
insufficient regular sound correspondences
limited use of established comparative method
methodological weaknesses
evidenceType lexical similarities
typological features
excludes Eskimo–Aleut languages
Na-Dene
surface form: Na-Dene languages
field historical linguistics
geographicCoverage Central America
North America
South America
hasImplicationsFor archaeological models of American prehistory
genetic studies of Indigenous American populations
includes most Indigenous languages of the Americas
influencedBy Greenberg's earlier work on language classification
languageGroupingType macro-family hypothesis rather than demonstrated family
notWidelyAcceptedSince late 20th century
opposedBy Ives Goddard
Lyle Campbell
most Americanist linguists
proposedBy Joseph Greenberg
proposes single common ancestor for most American Indigenous languages
publicationContext Greenberg's book "Language in the Americas"
rejectedBy most specialists in Native American languages
relatedToDebate peopling of the Americas
requiresForAcceptance reconstruction of proto-language forms
systematic sound correspondences across proposed branches
researchStatus largely abandoned in mainstream linguistics
status minority view in linguistics
stillDiscussedIn literature on fringe and long-range linguistic comparison
subfield American Indian languages
surface form: Amerindian linguistics
timeDepthClaimed Paleo-Indian period

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Joseph Greenberg proposed Amerind as a macro-family of the Americas