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Allan R. Bomhard

{{COI|talk=A user with the same name as the article in question has been blanking the article and replacing it with unsourced content.|date=September 2023}}{{Short description|American linguist (born 1943)}}

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Allan R. Bomhard (born July 10 1943){{Cite book |url=https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb12434064z |title=Bomhard, Allan R. (1943-....) |publisher=Bibliothèque Nationale de France}} is an American independent scholar writing books and predominantly self-published papers in the field of comparative linguistics and Buddhism. He is part of a small group of proponents of the Nostratic hypothesis, according to which the Indo-European languages, Uralic languages, Afroasiatic languages, and the Altaic languages would all belong to a larger macrofamily. As a prominent proponent of Nostratic, Bomhard's work has received attention from mainstream linguists and occasionally been discussed in linguistic sources. The majority of his work has been self published or printed thorough vanity presses.{{cite news|title=Linguists Debating Deepest Roots of Language|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/27/science/linguists-debating-deepest-roots-of-language.html|newspaper=The New York Times|first=George|last=Johnson|date=June 27, 1995}} Mainstream linguists have dismissed his theories.

Criticism

His theory about Nostratic languages is widely rejected by mainstream linguists as a fringe theory.{{cite book |last1=Campbell |first1=Lyle |title=Historical Linguistics: An Introduction |date=1998 |publisher=The MIT Press |isbn=978-0262518499 |page=311|quote="Postulated remote relationships such as Amerind, Nostratic and Proto-World have been featured in newspapers, magazines and television documentaries, and yet these same proposals have been rejected by most mainstream historical linguistics"}} Among Nostratists, he has been described as "a maximalist who casts his nets as widely as possible" among far-flung languages not generally believed to be related.{{cite magazine|title=Was There an ancient superlanguage called Nostratic?|magazine=Mosaic|date=November 9, 2022|author=Philologos|url=https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/history-ideas/2022/11/was-there-an-ancient-superlanguage-called-nostratic/}}

Russian linguists Georgiy Starostin, Mikhail Zhivlov, and Alexei Kassian have criticized his work as imprecise and "historically unrealistic".{{cite journal |last1=Starostin |first1=George | author1-link = Georgiy Starostin | last2 = Zhivlov | first2 = Mikhail | last3 = Kassian | first3 = Alexei |title=The "Nostratic" roots of Indo-European: from Illich-Svitych to Dolgopolsky to future horizons |journal=Slovo a Slovesnost | url = https://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.730add89-51a2-446e-9330-c2d163e62180 |date=2016 | volume = 77 | issue = 4 |page=403}}

Books

  • Toward Proto-Nostratic: A New Approach to the Comparison of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afroasiatic. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1984.Reviews of Toward Proto-Nostratic:
  • {{Cite journal |last=Kaye |first=Alan S. |author-link=Alan S. Kaye |date=1985 |title=Review |journal=Language |volume=61 |issue=4 |pages=887–891 |doi=10.2307/414496 |issn=0097-8507 |jstor=414496}}
  • {{cite journal |last=Levin |first=Saul |date=January 1985 |title=Review |journal=Diachronica |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=97–104 |doi=10.1075/dia.2.1.09lev}}
  • {{Cite journal |last=Helimski |first=Eugene |author-link=Eugene Helimski |date=1987 |title=A "New Approach" to Nostratic Comparison |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |volume=107 |issue=1 |pages=97–100 |doi=10.2307/602956 |issn=0003-0279 |jstor=602956}}
  • {{cite journal | last = Palmaitis | first = Mykolas L. | date = December 1986 | doi = 10.1515/9783110243338.305 | journal = Indogermanische Forschungen | pages = 305–317 | title = Besprechungsaufsätze: New Contributions to "Proto-Nostratic" | url = https://www.academia.edu/41825619}}
  • Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis. Charleston: SIGNUM Desktop Publishing, 1996.Reviews of Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis:
  • {{cite journal |last=McCall |first=Daniel F. |year=1997 |title=Rev. of Bomhard, Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis |journal=International Journal of African Historical Studies |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=473–76 |doi=10.2307/221291 |jstor=221291}}
  • {{cite journal |last=Sidwell |first=Paul J. |author-link=Paul Sidwell |date=January 1998 |title=Review |journal=Diachronica |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=341–348 |doi=10.1075/dia.15.2.09sid}}
  • {{cite journal|last=Gluhak|first=Alemko|journal=Filologija|volume=29|year= 1997|language=hr|url=https://hrcak.srce.hr/157496|title=Allan R. Bomhard, Indo-European and the Nostratic hypothesis|pages=200–205}}
  • {{cite journal|last=Matthews|first=S.|journal=Word: Journal of the Linguistic Circle of New York|year=1998|volume=49|issue=1|page=113|title=Review of Indo-European and the Nostratic hypothesis}}
  • Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic: Comparative Phonology, Morphology, and Vocabulary. Leiden and Boston: Brill. 2 vols, 2008.
  • The Nostratic Hypothesis in 2011: Trends and Issues. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man, 2011.{{Cite journal |last=Greppin |first=John A.C. |author-link=John A. C. Greppin |date=2017 |title=Review of The Nostratic Hypothesis in 2011|url=https://czasopisma.uwm.edu.pl/index.php/pj/article/view/5561/4201 |journal=Prace Językoznawcze |volume=XIX |issue=3 |pages=235–250 |issn=1509-5304}}
  • An Introductory Grammar of the Pali Language. Charleston: Charleston Buddhist Fellowship, 2012.
  • A Sketch of Proto-Indo-Anatolian Phonology. Florence, SC USA, 2024.

with John C. Kerns:

  • The Nostratic Macrofamily: A Study in Distant Linguistic Relationship. Berlin, New York, NY, and Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter, 1994.Reviews of The Nostratic Macrofamily:
  • {{cite journal |last=Orel |first=Vladimir |author-link=Vladimir Orel |year=1996 |title=Rev. of Bomhard and Kerns, The Nostratic Macrofamily |journal=Anthropological Linguistics |volume=38 |issue=1 |pages=155–58 |jstor=30028451}}
  • {{Cite journal |last=Campbell |first=Lyle |author-link=Lyle Campbell |date=1996 |title=Review of The Nostratic Macrofamily: A Study in Distant Linguistic Relationship |journal=Language |volume=72 |issue=3 |pages=656–657 |doi=10.2307/416301 |issn=0097-8507 |jstor=416301}}
  • {{Cite journal |last=Picard |first=Marc |date=March 1996 |title=Review |journal=Canadian Journal of Linguistics |language=en |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=62–65 |doi=10.1017/S0008413100020284 |s2cid=148709978 |issn=0008-4131}}

with Arnaud Fournet:

  • The Indo-European Elements in Hurrian. La Garenne Colombes / Charleston, 2010.{{cite journal|title=Review of The Indo-European Elements in Hurrian|first=Alexei|last=Kassian|url=https://jolr.ru/files/(44)jlr2010-4(199-206).pdf|journal=Journal of Language Relationship|volume=4|year=2010|pages=199–211}}

See also

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

  • [https://independent.academia.edu/AllanBomhard Allan Bomhard] at Academia.edu
  • [https://www.radikaliai.lt/radikaliai/4598-allan-r-bomhard Allan R. Bomhard: Nostratic linguistics is in full agreement with standard, recognized methodologies], 2019 interview

{{Long-range comparative linguistics}}

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Category:Living people

Category:Linguists of Nostratic languages

Category:Long-range comparative linguists

Category:20th-century American linguists

Category:21st-century American linguists

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)