Editing Nostratic languages (section)

===Moscow School of Comparative Linguistics===
{{main|Moscow School of Comparative Linguistics}}
[[File:NostraticLanguageTree.png|thumb|273x273px|More detailed tree of the Nostratic languages]]
While Pedersen's Nostratic hypothesis did not make much headway in the West, it became quite popular in the [[Soviet Union]]. Working independently at first, [[Vladislav Illich-Svitych]] and [[Aharon Dolgopolsky]] elaborated the first version of the contemporary form of the hypothesis during the 1960s. They expanded it to include additional language families. Illich-Svitych also prepared the first dictionary of the hypothetical language. Dolgopolsky's most recent ''Nostratic Dictionary'' was published in 2008, and is considered the most up-to-date attempt at a Nostratic lexicon.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/196512|title=Nostratic Dictionary|first=Aharon|last=Dolgopolsky|date=May 7, 2008|isbn=9781902937441|via=www.repository.cam.ac.uk}}</ref>

A principal source for the items in Illich-Svitych's dictionary was the earlier work of [[Alfredo Trombetti]] (1866–1929), an Italian linguist who had developed a classification scheme for all the world's languages, widely reviled at the time<ref>Cf. Trombetti’s defense against his critics in ''Come si fa la critica di un libro'' (1907).</ref> and subsequently ignored by almost all linguists. In Trombetti's time, a widely held view on classifying languages was that similarity in inflections is the surest proof of [[Genetic relationship (linguistics)|genetic relationship]]. In the interim, the view had taken hold that the [[comparative method]]—previously used as a means of studying languages already known to be related and without any thought of classification<ref>Cf. Greenberg 2005:159. See also Saussure's remarks on Franz Bopp, the founder of comparative linguistics, after Saussure has described the discovery of Indo-European by Cœurdoux and William Jones: "Bopp's originality is great. His merit is not to have discovered the kinship of Sanskrit with other European languages, but to have conceived that there was a subject for study in the precise relations of one related language to another related language." (From course notes by R. Engler, quoted by Tullio De Mauro in his critical edition of Ferdinand de Saussure, ''Cours de linguistique générale'', Paris: Payot, 1972, p. 412; cp. ''Cours'' p. 14.)</ref>—is the most effective means to establish genetic relationship, eventually hardening into the conviction that it is the only legitimate means to do so. This view was basic to the outlook of the new Nostraticists. Although Illich-Svitych adopted many of Trombetti's etymologies, he sought to validate them by a systematic comparison of the sound systems of the languages concerned.