{"id":43752,"date":"2022-10-25T06:44:24","date_gmt":"2022-10-25T12:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=43752"},"modified":"2022-10-24T12:57:28","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T18:57:28","slug":"clarifications-on-uto-aztecan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2022\/10\/clarifications-on-uto-aztecan\/","title":{"rendered":"Clarifications on Uto-Aztecan"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post by Brian Stubbs, a well-respected linguist with numerous publications on the history of Uto-Aztecan languages<\/a>, is a response to an earlier post by Jonathan Green<\/a> from 2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In Times and Seasons<\/em>, January 6, 2019, Jonathan Green published a post \u201cUto-Aztecan and Semitic: Too Much of a Good Thing.\u201d<\/a> A commenter, Steve J, asked: \u201cI hope Stubbs will at some point address the concerns expressed in the post.\u201d \u00a0Steve\u2019s hope is justified and a response is rightfully due.\u00a0 I did not learn of the post until long after it was written, thus the delay.<\/p>\n

Green is kind and fair in his opening paragraphs on my background and credentials. Later in the comments, he is again more than decent in my defense. So this is nothing against Green, only a clarification that he and many readers may appreciate.<\/p>\n

The research involves Uto-Aztecan (UA), one language family of some 30 related languages from the Utes in the north to the Aztecs in the south. UA contains a substantial amount of Semitic and Egyptian. Because some answers to the concerns are addressed in former publications, we refer to those past works with these abbreviations: Uto-Aztecan: A Comparative Vocabulary<\/em> (2011) as UACV, which was favorably reviewed (Hill 2012) and praised by all UA specialists; Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan<\/em> (2015) as Exploring<\/em>; the 2nd edition of Changes in Languages from Nephi to Now<\/em> (2020) as Changes in Languages<\/em>; and \u201cAnswering the Critics in 44 Rebuttal Points\u201d (2020) as \u201cAnswering,\u201d published on the Interpreter Foundation website. All but Changes in Languages<\/em> are available online.<\/p>\n

Under his number 1, Green\u2019s concern is that Semitic\u2019s morphological variety in verb forms makes finding purported matches easier.\u00a0 Nouns are simple, but verbs are indeed more complex.\u00a0 However, even in that complexity, certain forms are more apt to survive or be borrowed than others, and it is those very forms that we find in Uto-Aztecan (UA). Verbal morphology is typically simplified in language mixes (Velupillai 2015, 29), such that participles and 3rd<\/sup> person forms (he\/she) are the more frequently borrowed, and that is what we find in UA. No 1st<\/sup> or 2nd<\/sup> person (I, you) verb forms are found.\u00a0 Hebrew ya\u2019amin-o \u2018he believes it\u2019 becomes UA *yawamino \u2018believe it\u2019. The regular sound change of \u2019 (glottal stop) becoming \u2018w\u2019 is established by some 20 other instances. The pairs\u2019 length puts its probability of matching by chance at one in 17 million (given the sound correspondences and 1\/5 for 4 vowels and 1\/13 for 4 consonants all multiplied together; vowels are pronounced like Latin, Spanish, and most languages, but not English).<\/p>\n

Another concern expressed is that drawing on Aramaic and other Semitic forms increases the possibilities of random correlations. Not really, and not nearly enough to annul proper methodology (the comparative method). Whenever a new Semitic language or Indo-European language is discovered, comparisons with the related languages are looked at to see how this new discovery best fits the known languages (\u201cAnswering\u201d number 5), and the newcomer is often a combination of similarities: some things like this language, others like that, etcetera, which is what Exploring<\/em> (2015) explores.\u00a0 Furthermore, when many forms fit Aramaic, and not Hebrew, we are reminded that Aramaic was the language of Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, and Laban, the Aramean (Genesis 25:20) before the later Israelites adopted Canaanite (Hebrew being Israel\u2019s dialect of Canaanite). The Aramaic forms likely came from Israel\u2019s original language, which was Aramaic, not Hebrew. Several Semitic scholars argue that northern Israel maintained Aramaic, while adding Hebrew \/ Canaanite to result in varying degrees of bilingualism in the north. Also note Manasseh\u2019s northeast quadrant next to the Arameans (discussed more in Changes in Languages<\/em>, pp. 44-46; and \u201cAnswering\u201d number 14). Most of the UA forms align with Hebrew or Aramaic forms, Israel\u2019s Semitic languages, not other Semitic languages.<\/p>\n

Green suggests that with so much to choose from, it would seem \u201cimpossible not to find cognates.\u201d Actually, early in my career I looked for Semitic or Egyptian in several language families: Athapaskan, Yuman, Pomoan, Wintuan, Maiduan, Shastan, Yana, Kiowa-Tanoan, Keresan, Zuni, Salishan, Karuk, Algic, Siouan, Caddoan, Iroquoian, Muskogean, and Uto-Aztecan in North America; and Mayan, Totonacan, Mixe-Zoquean, Otomanguean, and a few isolates in Central America; and Chibchan, Cariban, Tupian, Paez, Arawakan, Aymaran, Witotoan, Quechuan, Matacoan, Pano-Tacanan, Guahiboan, Barbacoan, Macro-Je, Jivaroan, Movima, Zaparoan, and others in South America, but I did not find such an array of similarities in dozens of other language families, like exists in Uto-Aztecan, so then I specialized in UA. If I were prone to imagine or see what was not there, it would have happened long before UA.<\/p>\n

Green also states: \u201cthe numerous proposed Egyptian cognates are troubling, as they increase the suspicion that a similar list could be found for almost any language.\u201d\u00a0 The comparative method would not allow that, and a similar list was not found for the other hundreds of languages looked at.<\/p>\n

Another concern is that \u201cthe long list of cognates is actually a problem,\u201d calling for a shorter list of stricter criteria. Identifying an established system of sound correspondences (each phoneme \/ sound subject to a consistent \/ predicted change) is the ultimate strictness required by the linguistic comparative method, which eliminates general similarities or non-cognates, and the longer the list of cognates the stronger the case.\u00a0 I have never heard of objecting to a long list of cognates, except by one who totally misunderstood what was being compared (\u201cAnswering\u201d numbers 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 15, 18).<\/p>\n

Under his number 2, Green also wonders how a language\u2019s basic vocabulary is found in the language mix, but not its accompanying grammar. Actually, that result is common in language mixtures. Media Lingua or Chaupi Quichua has almost exclusively Spanish vocabulary but Ecuadorian Quichua grammar (Velupillai 2015, 402); Ma\u2019a\/Mbugu has Cushitic basic vocabulary and primarily Bantu grammar; and Angloromani adopted largely English grammar and Romani lexicon.\u00a0 Velupillai (2015, 71) calls these G-L mixed languages, the grammar coming mostly from one language and the Lexicon (words) mostly from the other. The 3rd paragraph of Wikipedia\u2019s statement on \u201cCreole Language\u201d describes what may have happened in UA: \u201cThe lexicon\u00a0of a creole language is largely supplied by the parent languages, particularly that of the most dominant group in the social context \u2026 On the other hand, the grammar that has evolved often has new or unique features that differ substantially from those of the parent languages.\u201d\u00a0 If some Lehites were dominant culturally in their successive contact situations, we might expect a good amount of their vocabulary to be incorporated or retained, but little of their language\u2019s grammar to persevere through contacts with the other populations. Then it would not be a matter of adopting pronouns (I, you, he, etc) as Green surmised, but that the Lehites kept their own pronouns and let the less dominant adopt and adapt.\u00a0 Grammar happens more subconsciously than lexical choices (see Changes in Languages<\/em>, Appendix B \u201cThe Subconscious Mind\u2019s Role in Language Acquisition\u201d), so developments in grammar are essentially out of everyone\u2019s control, and the grammar of the larger population(s) may be more influential.\u00a0 Reduplication (for plurals, repetition, intensification) is also more common in mixed languages (Velupillai 2015, 332), and that is exactly what we find in UA, that the fairly minimal reduplication in both Egyptian and Semitic is multiplied in UA.<\/p>\n

In the second paragraph under his number 2, Green raises a valid issue that has puzzled me too\u2014significant amounts of both Semitic and Egyptian vocabulary in the same semantic spheres. It does not invalidate the reality of the cognates nor would it necessarily suggest that they were \u201cfully bilingual in both Egyptian and a form of Hebrew.\u201d Yet it does make one wonder how it happened, whether regularly reading records in Egyptian gradually brought some of that vocabulary into their language (as reading Latin brought Latin vocabulary into English via Latin\u2019s dominance in academia for centuries) or whether other matters merit consideration, like facts that the leaders in the house of Joseph (Manasseh, Ephraim) were native speakers of Egyptian and their family records may have started (in Egyptian) before Hebrew was a written language, etcetera (more fully discussed in Changes in Languages<\/em>, pp. 32-43). Also consider that UA preserves the phonology of ancient Egyptian better than Coptic does (a later form of Egyptian; Exploring<\/em>, p. 343).<\/p>\n

Also under number 2, Green asks another good question: \u201care they [reconstructions] merely schematic representations, a type of intellectual game, or do they represent a linguistic and historical reality?\u201d The answer is both to some degree, which is why it is a good question.\u00a0 Reconstructed forms are linguists\u2019 best guesses at what the ancient form looked like, and they are right or nearly right, most of the time, because of an understanding of how sounds change and which directions of change are most likely, etcetera, after taking hundreds of language histories into account. However, new information does and should change opinions. In Indo-European, for example, reconstructions have changed over the years, often due to new information from newly discovered Indo-European languages.<\/p>\n

One curiosity is that Green mentions the single parallel of Quechua kumar \u2018sweet potato\u2019 and Polynesian kumara \/ kumala \u2018sweet potato\u2019 as evidence for contact (with which I agree), but sees UA\u2019s 1500 Near-East parallels as not likely to \u201cpan out.\u201d Progressively more scholars are accepting the \u2018sweet potato\u2019 pair as a genuine loan.\u00a0 Regardless the present state of DNA evidence for that contact situation, some DNA evidence between Uto-Aztecan peoples and Near-East Arab populations (akin to Israel\u2019s gene pool) has emerged consistent with the language tie (see \u201cAnswering\u201d number 27).<\/p>\n

Under his number 3, I do not understand his objection to English as a parallel example because English retains most of its core vocabulary from the original Old English \/ Germanic.\u00a0 Exactly!\u00a0 Similarly, the Lehite element in UA retained much of its core Semitic vocabulary, while absorbing from neighboring \/ intruding languages. He likely sees Lehite as a foreign entity coming in to mix with an already established language, while I see it the other way, as other languages successively influencing an established Lehite language. Thus, Lehites kept \/ retained their own pronouns and much vocabulary, while contact influences regularly diminished the percentages.\u00a0 Green is correct that Yiddish is basically a Germanic language with Semitic and other elements contributing some vocabulary, so his objection to Yiddish might be understandable, though again the original language of those Mediterranean \/ European Jews was Hebrew and some Aramaic, of which they kept some, but not a lot.\u00a0 While modern English retains only 15% of the Old English vocabulary and Yiddish shows a similarly low percentage of Semitic, the UA vocabulary may be 35-40% from the Semitic and Egyptian components (double the other two), and in the pervasive cognates (that are in 25 or more of the 30 UA languages) it is 70%. More to the point, only 26 UA cognate sets appear in all 11 branches of UA languages, and 25 of 26 (96%) of those are of the Semitic-Egyptian data.\u00a0 I merely mentioned (for lay readers) that English and Yiddish are examples of language mixing wherein a small percentage of the original language is kept, yet UA retains more than either of those languages of whatever component we are highlighting in each.<\/p>\n

It is worth responding to a few comments as well. Steve J\u2019s first comment is cited above.\u00a0 In his second comment, he gently counters what Franklin had said in the previous comment: that I had reached a conclusion and then looked for evidence.\u00a0 As stated earlier, a search in more than 50 language families typically turned up nothing, but caused a focus on UA, and as Steve J noted, I was totally surprised to see as much Aramaic and Egyptian as Hebrew.<\/p>\n

Clark Goble also hits the nail on the head regularly: even with \u201ca completely compelling argument, the implications of saying something good about it would be damaging career wise.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 He also addresses the transoceanic evidence for the chicken and attending controversialities, even when done by non-Latter-Day Saint scholars, and the magnification of opposition when done by LDS scholars.<\/p>\n

Some commenters were curious what non-LDS linguists\u2019 assessments might be. Those assessments are listed in both Changes in Languages<\/em> (Appendix J) and \u201cAnswering the Critics\u201d (number 40 and note 37). Roger William Wescott (President of the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, author of 500 articles and 40 books) spoke well of my work. David H. Kelley (Harvard PhD who published in anthropology, linguistics, Uto-Aztecan, and contributed to the decipherment of the Mayan glyphs) said upon receiving an early draft sent by John Sorenson: \u201cThe thick thing came in the mail and I did not want to tackle it, but dutifully opened it, intending to look at a page or two. However, I started to read and ended up reading the whole book. It is the most interesting and significant piece of research I have seen in years.\u201d Mary Ritchie Key of UC Davis lauded the work. Of the 25 UAnists that I sent the work to, five top specialists in Uto-Aztecan, PhDs in linguistics, told me such things as \u201ca strong case, sound, its correspondences in order,\u201d etcetera, but privately, not publicly. The others were silent, did not want to say anything.\u00a0 Four years later, two linguists (Rogers and Hansen) tried to take it down, but the article \u201cAnswering the Critics\u201d lists 44 reasons why their objections do not \u201cpan out,\u201d except Hansen was right on one point, and of course adjustments will continue, but no one has come close to a substantive argument against the case as a whole. The dozens of Uto-Aztecanists that I see annually at the UA conferences are friends, they have the work, and can mull over it as they wish. No need to push friends to respond or review something that they\u2019d rather not and put them in the no-win position that Clark Goble described above. Time will tell. If it is valid, time will have it rising above all efforts to the contrary. If it is not valid, I would not want it to survive. Furthermore, LDS linguists are as capable to judge matters as well as non-LDS, even if they might be more open-minded to transoceanic, though each LDS linguist was also doubtful upon hearing about it, until he\/she scrutinized the case; in fact, two of those originally doubtful LDS linguists (Robertson and Elzinga) were convinced upon examination and wrote positive reviews.<\/p>\n

Probabilities are tremendously in its favor. For example, semantic combinations, like Egyptian \u2018serpent, partner\u2019 to UA \u2018snake, twin\u2019 (Exploring<\/em>, number 332; Changes in Languages,<\/em> p. 68).\u00a0 What is the chance that two meanings so different (serpent and partner) would also be found in the corresponding UA word, meaning \u2018snake, twin\u2019.\u00a0 And there are many others.<\/p>\n

Most impressive is that nine phonological questions in UA have never been explained in the 100 years since UA was demonstrated by Edward Sapir (1913, 1915). Then after the underlying Semitic and Egyptian components were identified, the Semitic-Egyptian data explain seven of the nine (Exploring<\/em>, pp. 306-322; and \u201cAnswering\u201d number 23). That is astounding!\u00a0 For example, one of those is the solution to why Tarahumara reflects UA *t- as both r- and t-, about half in each category for more than 40 items. Curiously, the previously unexplained variation is explained by the UA data\u2019s alignment with Semitic and Egyptian r- vs. t-\/d-. The probability of such an alignment by chance is like guessing 40 coin tosses in a row, or 1 in a trillion (1\/2 multiplied to the 40th<\/sup> power).\u00a0 That kind of explanatory power is impossible, unless the case is valid.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Green\u2019s second large comment astutely summarizes publication challenges. He is right, that the audience for UA materials is very small. Five of us research in the whole language family of comparative UA; maybe 30-40 others work on a UA language; and maybe a few hundred others care or would be interested in reading anything on UA.\u00a0 Indeed, publishers must consider what will make them money; UA will not.\u00a0 Therefore, I self-publish.\u00a0 If I were to wait for a publisher to be willing to lose the money, I may expire first.<\/p>\n

Regarding Clark Goble\u2019s astute observations on transoceanic and Book-of-Mormon-friendly research, there is no doubt that if a reviewer is \u201cworking back from a presumed conclusion\u201d or is biased, any solid work can be framed to sound bad, and given that option, what chance is there for anything with implications favoring the Book of Mormon in secular academia?\u00a0 I know of only 15 linguists (7 LDS and 8 non-LDS) who have considered the whole case (no small task) and all of them came to positive conclusions. The two negative reviewers, by their statements, obviously missed much and did not read many sections, so they can hardly be counted among the scrutinizers. \u00a0When enough other linguists consider the whole case and are willing to admit in print that Semitic and Egyptian solve what has not been solved in UA through the intervening 100 years from Sapir (1915) to Exploring<\/em> (2015), then those voices and the several dimensions that defy chance probabilities may raise the future question: \u201cWhy did it take so long?\u201d\u00a0 Until then, if it is truth, more truth will continue emerging and only strengthen the case, as has been happening since publishing UACV<\/em> (2011) and Exploring<\/em> (2015) and Changes in Languages<\/em> (2020).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cCreole Language.\u201d Wikipedia, viewed Nov 23, 2021. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Creole_language<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elzinga, Dirk. Review of Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan<\/em>,<\/p>\n

by Brian Stubbs. BYU Studies Quarterly<\/em> 55, no. 4 (2016): 172-76.<\/p>\n

Green, Jonathan. \u201cUto-Aztecan and Semitic: Too Much of a Good Thing.\u201d\u00a0 In Times and Seasons<\/em>, January 6, 2019.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/harchive2019\/01\/uto-aztecan-and-semitic-too-much-of-a-good-thing\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Hansen, Magnus Pharao. \u201cAn Evaluation of the Nahuatl Data in Brian Stubbs\u2019 Work on Afro-Asiatic\/Uto-Aztecan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nahuatl Studies<\/em> (blog), September 12, 2019.<\/p>\n

Hill, Kenneth C.\u00a0 Review of Uto-Aztecan: A Comparative Vocabulary<\/em>, by Brian Stubbs.<\/p>\n

International Journal of American Linguistics<\/em> 78, no. 4 (2012): 591-93.<\/p>\n

Robertson, John S. \u201cExploring Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan Languages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-Day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em> 25 (2017): 103-116.<\/p>\n

Robertson, John S. \u201cAn American Indian Language Family with Middle-Eastern Loanwords: Responding to a<\/p>\n

Recent Critique.\u201d Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-Day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em> 34 (2019): 1-16.<\/p>\n

Rogers, Chris. \u201cA Review of the Afro-Asiatic-Uto-Aztecan Proposal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies<\/em> 28 (2019): 258-67.<\/p>\n

Sapir, Edward. Sapir, Edward. 1913, 1915. Southern Paiute and Nahuatl: a study in Uto-Aztecan, parts 1 and 2.<\/p>\n

Part 1, 1913 in Journal de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Am\u00e9ricanistes de Paris<\/em> 10:379-425.<\/p>\n

Part 2, 1915 in American Anthropologist<\/em> 17:98-120, 306-328, reprinted 1919 in JSAP 11: 443-88.<\/p>\n

Parts 1 and 2 reprinted 1990 in The collected works of Edward Sapir<\/em> 5: American Indian Languages<\/em>,<\/p>\n

William Bright, ed., 351-444. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.<\/p>\n

Stubbs, Brian D. Uto-Aztecan: A Comparative Vocabulary<\/em>. Flower Mound, TX: Shumway Family History Services<\/p>\n

and Rocky Mountain Books, 2011.<\/p>\n

Stubbs, Brian D. Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Provo, UT: Jerry D. Grover Publications, 2015.<\/p>\n

Stubbs, Brian D. Changes in Languages from Nephi to Now<\/em>. 2nd edition.\u00a0 Blanding, UT: Jared Berrett, 2020.<\/p>\n

Stubbs, Brian D. \u201cAnswering the Critics in 44 Rebuttal Points.\u201d Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-Day Saint Faith <\/em><\/p>\n

and Scholarship<\/em> 37 (2020): 237-292.<\/p>\n

Velupillai, Viveka.\u00a0 Pidgins, Creoles, and Mixed Languages: An Introduction<\/em>. Creole Language Library: volume 48.<\/p>\n

Amsterdam \/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post by Brian Stubbs, a well-respected linguist with numerous publications on the history of Uto-Aztecan languages, is a response to an earlier post by Jonathan Green from 2019.   In Times and Seasons, January 6, 2019, Jonathan Green published a post \u201cUto-Aztecan and Semitic: Too Much of a Good Thing.\u201d A commenter, Steve J, asked: \u201cI hope Stubbs will at some point address the concerns expressed in the post.\u201d \u00a0Steve\u2019s hope is justified and a response is rightfully due.\u00a0 I did not learn of the post until long after it was written, thus the delay. Green is kind and fair in his opening paragraphs on my background and credentials. Later in the comments, he is again more than decent in my defense. So this is nothing against Green, only a clarification that he and many readers may appreciate. The research involves Uto-Aztecan (UA), one language family of some 30 related languages from the Utes in the north to the Aztecs in the south. UA contains a substantial amount of Semitic and Egyptian. Because some answers to the concerns are addressed in former publications, we refer to those past works with these abbreviations: Uto-Aztecan: A Comparative Vocabulary (2011) as UACV, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10404,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2885,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-and-literature","category-mormon-studies"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43753,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43752\/revisions\/43753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}