Indo-Semitic languages


The Indo-Semitic hypothesis maintains that a genetic relationship exists between Indo-European and Semitic languages, and that the Indo-European and the Semitic language families both descend from a common root ancestral language. The theory is not widely accepted by contemporary linguists, but historically, it had a number of advocates and supporting arguments, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries.

History of the term and of the idea

The term "Indo-Semitic" was first used by Graziadio Ascoli, a leading advocate of this relationship. Although this term has been used by a number of scholars since, there is no universally accepted term for this grouping at the present time. In German, the term indogermanisch-semitisch, 'Indo-Germanic–Semitic', has often been used, in which indogermanisch is a synonym of "Indo-European".
Several phases in the development of the Indo-Semitic hypothesis can be distinguished.

A proposed relationship between Indo-European and Semitic

In a first phase, a few scholars in the 19th century argued that the Indo-European languages were related to the Semitic languages. The first to do so was Johann [Christoph Adelung] in his work Mithridates. However, the first to do so in a scientific way was Richard Lepsius in 1836. The arguments presented for a relationship between Indo-European and Semitic in the 19th century were commonly rejected by Indo-Europeanists, including W.D. Whitney and August Schleicher. The culmination of this first phase in Indo-Semitic studies was Hermann Möller's comparative dictionary of Indo-European and Semitic, first published in Danish in 1909.
A succinct history of the Indo-Semitic hypothesis is provided by Alan S. Kaye in a review of Allan Bomhard's Toward Proto-Nostratic:

A larger grouping

In the mid-19th century, Friedrich Müller argued that the Semitic languages were related to a large group of African languages, which he termed Hamitic. This implied a larger grouping, Indo-European–Hamito-Semitic. However, the concept of Hamitic was deeply flawed, relying in part on racial criteria rather than linguistic ones. In 1950, Joseph Greenberg showed that the Hamitic grouping needed to be split up, with only some of the languages it concerned groupable with Semitic. He named this greatly modified grouping Afroasiatic. In principle, then, Indo-European—Hamito-Semitic was replaced by Indo-European–Afroasiatic.
However, Greenberg also argued that the relevant question was not whether Indo-European was related to Afroasiatic but how it was related, such as whether the two form a valid node in a language family tree or were more distantly related. Since the 1980s, adherents of the controversial Nostratic hypothesis, who accept a relationship between Indo-European and Afroasiatic, have begun to move away from the view that Indo-European and Afroasiatic share an especially close relationship, and to consider that they are only related at a higher level.

Continued comparison of Indo-European and Semitic

Although it might seem that the logical connection to pursue was that between Indo-European and Hamito-Semitic or, later, Indo-European and Afroasiatic, in practice scholars interested in this comparison continued to compare Indo-European and Semitic directly. One reason for this seems to be that the study of Semitic had progressed far beyond that of "Hamitic" or, later, Afroasiatic. According to Albert Cuny, who accepted the validity of the Hamito-Semitic grouping:

Direct comparison of Indo-European and Afroasiatic

A new departure was represented by the first installment of Vladislav Illich-Svitych's Nostratic dictionary in 1971, edited by Vladimir Dybo after Illich-Svitych's untimely death. Rather than comparing Indo-European to Semitic, Illich-Svitych compared it to Afroasiatic directly, using his reconstruction of Afroasiatic phonology. This approach has been taken subsequently by other Nostraticists.

Incorporation of Indo-European into a larger language family (Eurasiatic)

In the 1980s, some linguists, notably Joseph Greenberg and Sergei Starostin, began to identify Afroasiatic as a language family considerably more ancient than Indo-European, directly related not to Indo-European but to an earlier grouping from which Indo-European was descended, which Greenberg termed Eurasiatic. This view has been accepted by several Nostraticists, including Allan Bomhard.

Conclusion

The Indo-Semitic hypothesis has thus undergone a paradigm shift. From Lepsius in 1836 through the mid-20th century, the question asked was whether Indo-European and Semitic are related or unrelated, and in attempting to answer this question Indo-European and Semitic were compared directly. This now appears naive, and the relevant units of comparison instead appear to be Eurasiatic and Afroasiatic, the immediate precursors of Indo-European and Semitic. This revised schema still has a long road to go if it is to win general acceptance from the linguistic community.