Editing Nostratic languages (section)

==Constituent language families==
The language families proposed for inclusion in Nostratic vary, but all Nostraticists agree on a common core of language families, with differences of opinion appearing over the inclusion of additional families.

The three groups universally accepted among Nostraticists are Indo-European, [[Uralic languages|Uralic]], and [[Altaic languages|Altaic]]. While the validity of Altaic itself generally rejected by linguists, is taken for granted by Nostraticists. Nearly all also include the [[South Caucasian languages|Kartvelian]] and [[Dravidian language]] families.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iNUSDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA84|first1=J.P.|publisher=Oxford University Press|last1=Mallory|first2=D.Q.|last2=Adams|isbn=0199296685 |title=The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European & the Proto-Indo-European World (Oxford Linguistics)|date=2006|page=84|access-date=2019-07-23}}</ref>

Following Pedersen, Illich-Svitych, and Dolgopolsky, most advocates of the theory have included [[Afroasiatic languages|Afroasiatic]], though criticisms by [[Joseph Greenberg]] and others from the late 1980s onward suggested a reassessment of this position.

The [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] and [[Etruscan language|Etruscan]] languages, regarded as [[language isolate]]s by linguists, are thought by some{{Who|date=November 2023}} to be Nostratic languages as well. Others, however, consider one or both to be members of another macrofamily called [[Dené–Caucasian languages|Dené–Caucasian]]. Another notional isolate, the [[Elamite language]], also figures in a number of Nostratic classifications.

In 1987 Joseph Greenberg proposed a similar macrofamily which he called [[Eurasiatic languages|Eurasiatic]].<ref>Greenberg, J., "The Indo-European First and Second Person Pronouns in the Perspective of Eurasiatic, Especially Chukotkan", ''Anthropological Linguistics Vol. 39'', No. 2 (Summer, 1997), p. 187.</ref> It included the same "Euraltaic" core (Indo-European, Uralic, and Altaic), but excluded some of the above-listed families, most notably Afroasiatic. At about this time Russian Nostraticists, notably [[Sergei Starostin]], constructed a revised version of Nostratic which was slightly broader than Greenberg's grouping but which similarly left out Afroasiatic.

Beginning in the early 2000s, a consensus emerged among proponents of the Nostratic hypothesis. Greenberg basically agreed with the Nostratic concept, though he stressed a deep internal division between its northern 'tier' (his Eurasiatic) and a southern 'tier' (principally Afroasiatic and Dravidian). [[Georgiy Starostin]] (2002) arrives at a tripartite overall grouping: he considers Afroasiatic, Nostratic and Elamite to be roughly equidistant and more closely related to each other than to anything else.<ref>[http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/elam.pdf Elamite]. ''Starling''.</ref> Sergei Starostin's school has now re-included Afroasiatic in a broadly defined Nostratic, while reserving the term Eurasiatic to designate the narrower subgrouping which comprises the rest of the macrofamily. Recent proposals thus differ mainly on the precise placement of Kartvelian and Dravidian.

According to Greenberg, Eurasiatic and [[Amerind languages|Amerind]] form a genetic node, being more closely related to each other than either is to "the other families of the Old World".<ref>Greenberg 2002:2.</ref> There are a number of hypotheses incorporating Nostratic into an even broader linguistic 'mega-phylum', sometimes called [[Borean languages|Borean]], which would also include at least the Dené–Caucasian and perhaps the Amerind and [[Austric languages|Austric]] superfamilies. The term SCAN has been used for a group that would include Sino-Caucasian, Amerind, and Nostratic.<ref>Pinker, Steven. ''The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language''. William Morrow and Company: New York, 1994. p. 256</ref> None of these proposed links have found wider acceptance outside of Nostraticists.

The following table summarizes the constituent language families of Nostratic, as described by [[Holger Pedersen (linguist)|Holger Pedersen]], [[Vladislav Illich-Svitych]], [[Sergei Starostin]], and [[Aharon Dolgopolsky]].

{| class="wikitable"

! Linguist
! Indo-European
! Afroasiatic
! Uralic
! Altaic
! Dravidian
! Kartvelian
! Eskaleut
! Yukaghir
! Sumerian
! Chukchi-Kamchatkan
! [[Nivkh languages|Gilyak]]
! Etruscan
|-

| Pedersen<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/769188796 |title=Nostratic : sifting the evidence |date=1998 |publisher=J. Benjamins |others=Joe Salmons, Brian D. Joseph, Workshop on Comparative Linguistics |isbn=978-90-272-7571-4 |location=Amsterdam |pages=53 |oclc=769188796}}</ref>
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}{{efn|Represented by "Semitic"}}
| {{ya}}{{efn|Pedersen does not group Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic into a single Uralic language family}}
| {{ya}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
|-

| Illich-Svitych<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/769188796 |title=Nostratic : sifting the evidence |date=1998 |publisher=J. Benjamins |others=Joe Salmons, Brian D. Joseph, Workshop on Comparative Linguistics |isbn=978-90-272-7571-4 |location=Amsterdam |pages=25 |oclc=769188796}}</ref>
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
|-

| Starostin<ref>{{Cite book |first=Vitaly |last=Shevoroshkin|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/475815004 |title=Explorations in language macrofamilies : Materials from the first International Interdisciplinary Symposium on Language and Prehistory, Ann Arbor 8-12 November 1988 |date=1989 |publisher=Studienverlag Brockmeyer |isbn=3-88339-751-2 |pages=44 |oclc=475815004}}</ref>
| {{ya}}
| {{na}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
| {{na}}
|-

| Dolgopolsky<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dolgopolsky|first=A. B. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/40689120 |title=The Nostratic macrofamily and linguistic palaeontology |date=1998 |publisher=McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research |others=Colin Renfrew, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research |isbn=0-9519420-7-7 |location=Cambridge |oclc=40689120}}</ref>
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{na}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
| {{ya}}
|-

| colspan=13| {{notelist}}

|}