Editing Joseph Greenberg (section)

====The languages of the Americas====
{{main|Amerind languages}}
Most linguists concerned with the [[indigenous languages of the Americas|native languages of the Americas]] classify them into 150 to 180 independent language families. Some believe that two language families, [[Eskimo–Aleut]] and [[Na-Dené]], were distinct, perhaps the results of later migrations into the New World.

Early on, Greenberg (1957:41, 1960) became convinced that many of the language groups considered unrelated could be classified into larger groupings. In his 1987 book ''Language in the Americas'', while agreeing that the [[Eskimo–Aleut]] and [[Na-Dené]] groupings as distinct, he proposed that all the other Native American languages belong to a single language macro-family, which he termed [[Amerind languages|Amerind]].

''Language in the Americas'' has generated lively debate, but has been criticized strongly; it is rejected by most specialists of indigenous languages of the Americas and also by most historical linguists. Specialists of the individual language families have found extensive inaccuracies and errors in Greenberg's data, such as including data from non-existent languages, erroneous transcriptions of the forms compared, misinterpretations of the meanings of words used for comparison, and entirely spurious forms.<ref>Chafe, Wallace. (1987). [Review of Greenberg 1987]. ''Current Anthropology'', ''28'', page 652-653.</ref><ref>Goddard, Ives. (1987). [Review of Joseph Greenberg, ''Language in the Americas'']. ''Current Anthropology'', ''28'', 656-657.</ref><ref>Goddard, Ives. (1990).  [Review of ''Language in the Americas'' by Joseph H. Greenberg]. ''Linguistics'', ''28'', 556-558.</ref><ref>Golla, Victor. (1988).  [Review of ''Language in the Americas'', by Joseph Greenberg]. ''American Anthropologist'', ''90'', page 434-435.</ref><ref>Kimball, Geoffrey. (1992). A critique of Muskogean, 'Gulf,' and Yukian materials in Language in the Americas. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''58'', page 447-501.</ref><ref>Poser, William J. (1992). The Salinan and Yurumanguí data in Language in the Americas. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''58'' (2), 202-229. [http://www.billposer.org/Papers/sydilia.pdf PDF]</ref>

Historical linguists also reject the validity of the method of multilateral (or mass) comparison upon which the classification is based. They argue that he has not provided a convincing case that the similarities presented as evidence are due to inheritance from an earlier common ancestor rather than being explained by a combination of errors, accidental similarity, excessive semantic latitude in comparisons, borrowings, onomatopoeia, etc.

However, Harvard geneticist David Reich notes that recent genetic studies have identified patterns that support Greenberg's Amerind classification: the "First American” category. "The cluster of populations that he predicted to be most closely related based on language were in fact verified by the genetic patterns in populations for which data are available.” Nevertheless, this category of "First American" people also interbred with and contributed a significant amount of genes to the ancestors of both Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dené populations, with 60% and 90% "First American" DNA respectively constituting the genetic makeup of the two groups.<ref>Reich, David. (2018). ''Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past.'' Chapter 7. New York: Pantheon Books (2018).</ref>