Talk:Indo-Semitic languages

Two different subjects

The question has been raised by Talskubilos whether this article should be merged with the article Hermann Möller and he has added a merge tag to the article. While there is some overlap between the two articles, and this may seem to justify a merger at first glance, closer examination shows the subjects are distinct and require different articles.

• Hermann Möller is known for other things than just the Indo-Semitic theory, especially his theories on Beowulf and his major contributions to the laryngeal theory.

• The Indo-Semitic theory has been around since Adelung's Mithridates at the start of the 19th century. It received its first sophisticated treatment from Lepsius in 1836. It still has current practitioners, such as Saul Levin, whose work has been panned by some but praised by at least one major Africanist, Hodge. So the Indo-Semitic theory very clearly does not reduce to Hermann Möller.

In conclusion, these articles definitively need to remain separate. In consequence, I am removing the merge tag.

VikSol (talk) 12:08, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

As I explained there, it would be necessary to merge your article within a separate section within the Nostratic article. Talskubilos (talk) 19:28, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

As I show in Talk:Nostratic languages, Indo-Semitic requires a separate article. However, I agree that the Indo-Semitic hypothesis should be mentioned in the Nostratic article. We need a section on the prehistory of the Nostratic hypothesis.

VikSol (talk) 00:41, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Reversion of recent edits

A series of recent edits has reduced the overall coherence of the article. I have therefore reverted the article to its earlier state. In particular:

• The replacement of a valid citation system already used in an article with another is not recommended on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Citing sources#Parenthetical referencing.

• We want to avoid the use of "race" as a linguistic catetgory.

• The idea that ablaut offers a link between Indo-European and Semitic was fairly popular in the 19th and 20th centuries. But if we are going to introduce it here we need a presentation that says who introduced it, what their arguments were, and what the evolution of this concept has been, with appropriate references.

Let me note in passing that this idea is unlikely to be ultimately correct, as Indo-European ablaut is largely due to the destructive effects of stress accent on the unaccented vowel /e/, a phenomenon that is almost certainly later than Pre-Proto-Indo-European. (See Szemerényi's Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics on the pre-zero-grade period.)

This said, the subject of ablaut may be worth including here, but if so it would require a separate section, added after the general historical summary that now constitutes the article. In this regard, the contributor has raised an interesting possibility but it would require further effort to integrate into the article in a constructive way.

VikSol (talk) 18:22, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

That's nice but it seems like you are pretty biased against Arabs or something. What's matter? Does NPOV only apply to subjects you agree with? Give this article a fair shot; you make it seem like crackpot and guard over it like an obsessive savant.--Sιgε |д･) 19:38, 18 July 2015 (UTC)