Talk:Mass comparison

What of the example table?

The text seems to explain that by mass comparision we could estabilish a relationship between languages H and I. What of A thru G, however? --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 12:13, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

POV

This article consists mostly of blatant Greenberg apologetics - in other words it is wildly POV. Some sections like the "myth of Mass comparison" is clearly Synthesis/OR and ripe with pro-Greenberg editorializing. As it stands that section should rather be removed than be allowed to stand as is. It is unencyclopedic in style to have an article about a very widely criticized methodology that clearly aims to reivindicate the method rather than just describe what it is and why it is controversial. ·Maunus·ƛ· 03:52, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Maunus, I appreciate your comments. I would like you to be happy with this article. We are on difficult ground given that feelings run high on this subject. However, I have known some articles on equally controversial subjects to have achieved stability and this can happen here. Please note that I respected your recent edits to Joseph Greenberg while copy-editing them and if you feel that I changed anything essential in them I invite you to put it back.

As the subject of mass comparison is relatively large, I suggest focusing on the "Myth of mass lexical comparison" section, at least to begin with. As you know, the essential Wikipedia criterion is not truth but verifiability. After scrutinizing this section, I personally don't feel it violates verifiability: everything is referenced and the references seem to hold up. It states, as I understand it, that many linguists believe Greenberg's method was "mass lexical comparison", and provides evidence that this was not so, both because he never used the term and because he also relied on grammatical comparison. Do you dispute any of these facts? If so, the POV tag may be able to stand. If not, I submit it should be removed. In my opinion, it is legitimate to oppose Greenberg's methods but not to misrepresent them.

I also think the article does "describe what it [mass comparison] is and why it is controversial". Namely (1) mass comparison is both lexical and grammatical and (b) contrary to the prevailing approach among linguists, it does not check its results by establishing regular sound correspondences.

Finally, the article clearly states upfront, in a sentence to which you have helpfully added a reference, that "The method is generally rejected by linguists (Campbell 2001:45)".

Hoping we can pursue the discussion in all amity and comity, if you wish VikSol 05:48, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the article for a while and was pleasantly surprised to find detailed exposition of both pro and anti views. This is exactly what NPOV is about, and this article is a great example of how to treat a controversial topic.

If particular statements are uncited they should be tagged as such, or if a particular linguist's views are misrepresented, that should be fixed. Simply tagging the whole article is not useful. --JWB (talk) 20:04, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I have read the article again and I am now certain that although the "The Myth of Mass Lexical Comparison" is a particularly blatant example of POV, the entire article, lead included, suffers form the same problem. Lets start by looking at the "Myth" section.

Title: the very title implies that mainstream linguists are subject to a false belief that Greenberg used Mass Lexical Comparison. However both of the underlying presuppositions of this title, namely 1. that G did never use Mass Lexical Comparison and 2. that his critics believe that G never compared grammatical but only lexical material are unfounded which I shall show under the next point.

Content: The section argues that because Greenberg did sometimes use grammatical material in his comparison, and never himself used the word "mass lexical comparison" it is unjust when his critics call his method this. However it does neither justify these conclusions or trace them to reliable sources. Instead it sets up quotes by G himself and quotes by his critics in order to show that the critical characterizations of his method are not compatible whith how he himself described his methods. Hardly a suprise - but it is however Synthesis and Original Research when the article author then uses the discrepancy between the critics description of G's methods and G's own explanations to conclude that the critics are wrong. If a source could be found that states what most linguists believe about G's methods and that they are wrong in this belief, then we could write it in the article. Here it is nothing more than the editors conclusion made by synthesising different writings by G and his critics. Some degree of synthesis is sometime admissible, but it sets extremely high demands on the editors' neutrality and capability of not misrepresenting his sources. Here however the anti-Greenberg side is clearly misrepresented. One issue is for example that judging from the aticle here mainstream linguists are unaware that Greenberg used grammatical material in his comparisons - this could only be true if his detractors had not read his books. A Lyle Campbell quote is used to show that his critics accuse him of only relying visual inspection of lexical items. The quote seems to say exactly that - but any one who has read Campbells criticisms of G will know that he is fully aware that Greenbergs tries to use grammatical elements - for example Campbell spends quite a lot of paper explaining that Gs grouping of all nearly amerindian languages in one family is based almost exclusively on a little group of grammatical affixes: for example a prefix n- for first person a prefix m- for second person. So Campbell knows very well that G uses grammatical morphemes as well as purely lexical material. Then why does Campbell say what he says in that quote? Because to most linguists grammatical affixes is ALSO a kind of lexical material, even if they are not independent roots! So the entire section is based on a false dichotomy pretending that mainstream linguists accuse G of only using independent lexical roots where in fact he does also use grammatical material. A secondary issue is the term Mass Lexical Comparison which is said to refer to something that never existed - a bold and unsourced claim in it self - G called his method Multilateral Comparison and whether or not his critics use the same word or not it is still the same method. The only thing that the supposed myth of Mass lexical comparison is used for here is to make G's critics look like idiots who haven't even bothered to read his works.

Phrasings:

"It is widely believed among linguists that Greenberg's method of language classification was limited to comparisons of words alone, to the neglect of grammatical elements, which could often provide more decisive evidence for language relationship or non-relationship." followed by "in reality Greenberg never used ..."

Who says that it is widely believed? Who says what G "used in reality"?

"In sum, mainstream historical linguists believe that Joseph Greenberg advocated and practiced a technique limited to lexical comparison. Greenberg's published writings show that he advocated the use of both lexical and grammatical data and that he carried out this theoretical desideratum in practice. No such technique as "mass lexical comparison" has ever existed."

This phrasing show beyond a shadow of doubt that the argumentation is OR and belongs to the editor rather than to any published scholar.

If you look at the history of this article in Wikipedia, it started out as an article Mass lexical comparison which was very anti-Greenberg and not very well argued. This seems to be what the author of much of the present article text was responding to.

Are you saying that Greenberg did not use any grammatical or typological material other than affixes? --JWB (talk) 19:00, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

A very anti-greenberg article would be much closer to given a balanced view of the viewpoints. The method is rejected by the large majority of linguists, and by nearly all of those working in what one might call the "mainstream" of linguistics. In short a pro-greenberg article which is what we have now - gives immensely undue weight to that particular viewpoint - while an anti-greenberg article would suffer less from undue weight. Of course we should have a neutral article that shows what the method is and why it is rejected by most historical linguists.And no I am not saying that he didnt use other kinds of grammatical material than affixes - although I am fairly sure that that would be close to the truth. I am saying that nobody has accused him of not considering grammatical material - everybody knows that there were ghrammatical lexical elements represented in his notebooks. However what G never does but which is fundamental to real historical linguistics is to compare and reconstruct grammatical systems!

Other problems:

Lead:

"In spite of widespread skepticism about his method, some of the relationships established by Greenberg gradually came to be generally accepted (e.g. Afro-Asiatic and Niger-Congo). Others are widely accepted though disputed by some (e.g. Nilo-Saharan), others are predominantly rejected but have some defenders (e.g. Khoisan), while others continue to be widely rejected and have only a handful of defenders (e.g. Amerind)." While the facts here are about right (except that G's critics do not ascribe the succefulness of A-A and N-C to a succesful application of the method but rather to those groupings relying on previous welconducted research made by other scholars), the phrasing is blatant POV. The weasel opening makes it clear that the entire phrase is couting up the method's merits instead of giving an objective evalutation.

Theory of Mass Comparison

"The basic relationships can be determined without any experience in the case of languages that are fairly closely related. Knowing a bit about probable paths of sound change allows one to go farther faster. An experienced typologist — Greenberg was a pioneer in the field — can quickly recognize or reject several potential cognates in this table as probable or improbable." Again this gives G's viewpoint unquestioned. The basic assumption that closely related languages have cognate sets that are immediately recognizeable is of course false as anyone of G's critics would retort and secondly it does not mention the even greater point of criticism: that there is no way to distinguish look-alikes from cognates this method and look-alikes are the biggest problem for establishing genealogical relationships! The assumtion that because two languages have words that look a like and have somewhat similar meanings those two languages must be related is FALSE! Thirdly the linguistic discipline of typology has nearly nothing to do with knowing which kinds of soundchanges are more or less likely - and Greenbergs endeavours in Typology certainly had nothing to do with the phonological level he became famous for starting the field of syntactical typology! The statement that Greenberg was a typological pioneer is just an attempt to justify his subjective assumptions of possible reconstruction with establishing sounchanges.

"Critics of mass comparison generally assume that mass comparison has no means to distinguish borrowed forms from inherited ones, unlike comparative reconstruction, which is able to do so through regular sound correspondences." Again the phrasing is intended to make it look like G's critics haven't read his books. His critics do not assume, they have repeatedly proven that Grenberg DID NOT distinguish borrowed forms in his data even when their history as borrowed terms had appeared in print. The method of course doesn't have a way to distinguish borrowing but that wouldn't as big a problem if G actually tried to eliminate borrowings - but he didn't. Secondly all the assumptions Greenberg made in 1957 about what is borroweable and what isn't have been shown to be false, but here they are allowed to stand alone (see Kaufman & Thomason (1988 Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics) and Thomason (2001). Language contact: an introduction for the most recent work on borrowability and language contact studies.)

"Greenberg considered that the results achieved through this method approached certainty (39): "The presence of fundamental vocabulary resemblances and resemblances in items with grammatical function, particularly if recurrent through a number of languages, is a sure indication of genetic relationship."" Greenberg was wrong in his consideration and his critics have proven that - why isn't that supplied here?

The place of sound correspondences...

"It is often reported that Greenberg sought to replace the comparative method with a new method, mass comparison (or, among his less scrupulous critics, "mass lexical comparison")." This weasel phrase speaks for itself. Whether or not he intended to replace the comparative method is irrelevant - the criticism is that his method doesn't do what he says it does, namely suggest groupings to submit to further in depth study by the comparative method. One might as well chose arbitrary languages and obtain the same result (which has in fact been tried).

Summary:

Here we are allowed to see all Gs flawed assumptions again - again without any of the arguments against the assumptions being provided.

Position of Greenbergs detractors

"For instance, one could prove that Spanish is related to Italian by showing that many words of the former can be mapped to corresponding words of the latter by a relatively small set of replacement rules — such as the correspondence of initial es- and s-, final -os and -i, etc. Many similar correspondences exist between the grammars of the two languages. Since those systematic correspondences are extremely unlikely to be random coincidences, the most likely explanation by far is that the two languages have evolved from a single ancestral tongue (Latin, in this case)." This is not the comparative method! The comparative method establishes history based on regular sound changes and reconstruction of proto-forms, not just by looking at two pairs of vocabulary, finding them similar and stating that they are related: that is much closer to mass comparison (except here for ease of explanation the example just uses two languages). Apparently the editor who wrote this hasn't read the wikipedia article about the comparative method or any other description of the method by someone who is not a Greenbergian.

Response of Greenbergs Defenders

"The actual development of the comparative method was a more gradual process than Greenberg's detractors suppose." So G's critics also do not know how the method they cherish so much was developed? Boy they really are ignorant.

"Indo-European was recognized by scholars such as William Jones (1786) and Franz Bopp (1816) long before the development of the comparative method. Furthermore, Indo-European was not the first language family to be recognized by students of language. Semitic had been recognized by European scholars in the 17th century, Finno-Ugric in the 18th. Dravidian was recognized in the mid-19th century by Robert Caldwell (1856), well before the publication of Schleicher's comparative reconstructions." This misrepresents the difference between "recognized" and "proved" - it also fails to show that inclusion of the more interesting branches in those families was only achieved through strict application of the comparative method.

"Finally, the supposition that all of the language families generally accepted by linguists today have been proved by the comparative method is untrue." Weasel anyone?

"For example, although Eskimo-Aleut has long been accepted as a valid family, "Proto-Eskimo-Aleut has not yet been reconstructed" (Bomhard 2008:209)." Hmm I suppose someone shoould have told Mike Fortescue, Kaplan and Jacobson and Knut Bergsland that they were not really using the comparative method when they published their "Comparative Eskimo Dictionary with Aleut Cognates" and "Comparative Eskimo-Aleut phonology and lexicon." in 1994 and 1986 respectively.

"Conversely, detailed comparative reconstructions exist for some language families which nonetheless remain controversial, such as Altaic and Nostratic." Nowehere has any proponent of the comparative method stated that making a reconstruction is enough for a proposal to be proven. It also has to be a valid reconstruction!

"According to Greenberg’s critics, genetic classification arises from the identification of sound correspondences or (others state) the reconstruction of protolanguages." Not "or" And. And please substitute Greenbergs Critics with mainstream historical linguists (or if you like just "the majority of historical linguists")here.

These examples are by no means all that is wrong with trhe article but only the most blatant POV breaches in the aticle as it stands. Generally it needs to include much more of what the critics actually say and why they say it, and this of course also needs to be presented in a fair way and not just retorted by painting them as morons. I hope you can see now that the article is by no means neutral or "a great example of how to write an article about a controversial topic"·Maunus·ƛ· 22:45, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

You have outlined some responses by the anti-Greenberg side - feel free to add those to the article. Both the pro- and anti-Greenberg material also need to be referenced.

I can see how you don't like the tone of parts of the article, but it is a representation of the pro-Greenberg POV, and the article should explain both POVs as well as possible. --JWB (talk) 17:57, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry but that is not a response. Of course I can add referenced material to the article, and of course I will - but this is a questrion about the quality of the parts of the article that are already there. I have shown that the article it self is fully biased, not just that it only represents the pro-greenberg side of the argument which would be bad enough. It consistently misrepresents the opposing majority view and paints the scholars who espouse it (the majority of historical linguists) as amateurs who know nothing neither of Greenbergs writings or of historicval linguistics in general and are unable to present cogherent arguments. In short it gives the rerader a completely false image of the actuakl state of the discussion.·Maunus·ƛ· 18:28, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, presenting both POVs of an issue as if they were on equal footing is not always the same as being NPOV. See WP:UNDUE, particularly: "In articles specifically on the minority viewpoint ... the article should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear ... that [the minority view] is, in fact the minority view[.] The majority view should be explained in sufficient detail so the reader understands how the minority view differs from the widely-accepted one. ... Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention overall as a majority view". This article needs to be far more clear on the fact that Mass Comparison is a minority-viewpoint, disavowed by nearly all historical linguists. --Miskwito (talk) 19:48, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree. Greenberg's mass comparison is espoused by a very small proportion of historical linguists, albeit a very vocal minority and, unfortunately, the side of the issue that usually gets the best press. But it is a minority viewpoint, nonetheless. (Taivo (talk) 00:03, 13 April 2009 (UTC))

I think this article needs to attain a state where it is accepted as NPOV by all parties concerned. This can be done. A variety of issues have been raised which will require some time to address. But the task is not infinite. At some point all necessary issues will have been vetted.

Maunus has, I believe, flagged three levels to address: (1) What are the facts? (2) Original research / synthesis. (3) Whether the argument is structured so as to produce a given result. To these JWB has added (4) the question of tone. Each section of the article needs to be discussed on these levels in turn.

Majority / minority issues have also been raised and will obviously need to be considered further.

I will have more to say on these points, as I am sure others will as well. I am currently hesitating whether we need to go to the most controversial issues first, or first pick the low-hanging fruit, which may consist of the "Position of Greenberg's detractors" section, which illustrates the comparative method with an example drawn from French and Spanish that I agree with Maunus is very flawed. I think we should put in an example taken directly from one of the standard manuals of historical linguistics, such as those by Anttila, Hock, or Trask. VikSol (talk) 06:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Another (comparatively minor) problem I've come across is the misrepresentation of a source's claims. Specifically, the article currently states "In spite of the apparently intractable nature of the conflict between Greenberg and his critics, a few linguists have begun to argue for its resolution. Edward Vajda, acclaimed for his recent demonstration of Dené-Yeniseian, attempts to stake out a position that is sympathetic to both Greenberg’s approach and that of its critics, such as Lyle Campbell and Johanna Nichols, and links to this paper of Vajda's (PDF): [1]. The article makes it sound as though Vajda accepts aspects of both traditional historical linguistics and mass comparison. But that's not Vajda's position. He is in favor of resolving conflicts between traditional historical linguists and more aggressive, long-range lumpers (the paper is dedicated to both Lyle Campbell and Joseph Greenberg). But he doesn't accept both the comparative method and mass comparison as equally-valid: "I think that future scholarship will fully vindicate Lyle Campbell's judgments on linguistic methodology as well as Greenberg's goal of a comprehensive genetic classification." In other words, longer-range comparisons can be successfully demonstrated, but not by mass comparison! Of course, this is a relatively minor point compared with many of the issues in the article, but there are many other more minor issues like this that we'll need to deal with as well, as VikSol points out above. --Miskwito (talk) 00:30, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Starting from things said above, I'd like to make a couple of preliminary points and then start moving on to substantial issues.

1. If we are to conduct this discussion according to the standards of Wikipedia, we need to have access to basic source materials. In the case of Greenberg, this means his Genetic Linguistics (2005), which contains his most essential methodological essays, and preferably his works of language classification: Studies in African Linguistic Classification (1949-54 = 1955), The Languages of Africa (1963 = 1966 = 1970), "The Indo-Pacific hypothesis" (reprinted in Genetic Linguistics), Language in the Americas (1987), and Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives (2000-2002). The best-known defense of Greenberg is Merritt Ruhlen's On the Origin of Languages (Stanford 1994). In the case of Greenberg's critics, there is no one source we can cite as primordial, but I would think Lyle Campbell's Historical Linguistics would be on anyone’s short list. Terence Kaufman and Sarah Thomason’s Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics (1988) and Sarah Thomason's Language Contact (2001), mentioned by Maunus supra, are relevant at several points.

2. The point has been raised above that NPOV guidelines require that the majority point of view be proportionally emphasized more than the minority point of view in cases of conflict. This does not mean, however, that the minority point of view should be presented from the majority point of view: rather, both should be presented from neutral point of view, but it should be clear to the reader which is which.

Some of the most relevant guidelines are (from Wikipedia:Neutral point of view 2.3, to which Miskwito very usefully steers us, underlining added):

Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: In general, articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and will generally not include tiny-minority views at all. For example, the article on the Earth does not mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, a view of a distinct minority.

In articles specifically on the minority viewpoint, the views are allowed to receive more attention and space; however, on such pages, though the minority view may (and usually should) be described, possibly at length, the article should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view (and that it is, in fact the minority view). The majority view should be explained in sufficient detail so the reader understands how the minority view differs from the widely-accepted one, and controversies regarding parts of the minority view should clearly be identified and explained.

For example, it is unacceptable to rewrite the Out of Africa article to present the multiregional hypothesis as of equal popularity among scientists in relevant disciplines (as some have been doing), but it would not be permissible to present the multiregional hypothesis purely from the point of view of its critics: rather, the arguments that have been made for and against it should be presented from neutral point of view, the opinion of the majority of scientists presented, and the reader left to make up her/his own mind (cp. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#History and rationale).

In other words, Wikipedia makes a distinction between articles on general subjects (such as the comparative method, where Greenberg's views are not even mentioned) and "articles specifically on the minority viewpoint" (such as mass comparison).

I am mentioning these guidelines because it would not be acceptable to write the article from the POV of Greenberg's critics because they are in the majority. Nor is there any principle on Wikipedia that in articles "specifically on the minority viewpoint" the majority viewpoint should receive more space. The guidelines seem to imply that each viewpoint should receive enough space for it to be clear to the reader and that the amount of space required to do so will vary from article to article.

Does the article currently conform to these guidelines? That is one of the principal things at issue. The guidelines themselves (if I am not mistaken) are clear enough.

3. I think we have at this point an acceptable framework for discussion. More could be said on certain points, and may be, but I think it’s time to go to substantive issues. Maunus has raised certain points on "lexical comparison" that need to be considered. Namely:

(a) "Lexical" refers to both vocabulary items and grammatical items.

(b) Greenberg at times engaged in vocabulary comparison to the exclusion of grammatical comparison.

In conclusion, the term "mass lexical comparison" is justified, first because "lexical" items include "grammatical" items, second because Greenberg in fact engaged in vocabulary comparison at times.

I think there is some truth to each of these points. Every now and then, I come across a use of "lexical" to mean both roots and affixes. Furthermore, we all know that many affixes are grammaticalized forms of roots. The relation is sometimes etymologically transparent, eroding the boundary between root and affix. The use of personal pronouns to recharacterize verb endings is especially frequent. So there is no absolute boundary here, either terminologically or in the process of language change.

Furthermore, Greenberg had a high opinion of vocabulary comparison as a means to provide instant classifications. He was prepared to classify even languages for which the only evidence is a word list, often based on casual contact. So it could be argued that he assigned a higher role to lexical comparison than most linguists would be willing to endorse.

There is some truth to these points, but not enough.

Although some linguists occasionally use "lexical" in an expansive sense, including both roots and affixes (and other elements of speech – accent, tone), this is not by any means the usual acceptation of this term. "Lexemes" are usually opposed to "affixes", "inflections", "grammatical formatives", and the like.

That this is how both Greenberg and his critics take the word "lexical" is clear from their writings. For example, Greenberg states (quoted in the article):

When the morphemes involved are roots this is called lexical comparison, when they are affixes, grammatical. There is no contradiction in the results attained by lexical and grammatical comparison and both methods are employed as far as possible.

Likewise, Lyle Campbell uses "lexical items", "'words'", and "vocabulary" to designate the same thing (also quoted in the article, boldface added):

The best-known of the approaches which rely on inspectional resemblances among lexical items is that advocated by Joseph Greenberg, called 'multilateral (or mass) comparison'. It is based on 'looking at ... many languages across a few words ' rather than at 'a few languages across many words ' (Greenberg 1987: 23). The lexical similarities determined by superficial visual inspection which are shared 'across many languages' alone are taken as evidence of genetic relationship. (...) In short, no technique which relies on inspectional similarities in vocabulary alone has proven adequate for establishing distant family relationships.

Such quotations could be multiplied very easily at great length. At the end of the day, it will have to be accepted that (a) Greenberg didn’t advocate or practice a method of purely lexical comparison and (b) many linguists have in fact said he did.

There is, however, some truth in the claim: Greenberg rated lexical comparisons higher than most linguists would be prepared to do, and the evidence he considered decisive would not be accepted as decisive by most linguists. We could perhaps add a section expressing this nuanced view. VikSol (talk) 00:50, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

A couple of comments. Campbell has a very detailed discussion of Greenberg and his critics in American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America--I think much more detailed than that found in Historical Linguistics, but I'll check (I have both at hand). I'll also ask him which he thinks is the better discussion and if he has a preference. Your comments, VikSol, vis a vis policy and how to write an article on the minority view are quite right, but you asked the question about whether this article neutrally describes the minority view and its critics as it is currently written. No, it does not. Right now, the article is written in a rather reverential POV and dismisses the critics as almost a medieval cabal bent on smothering the ray of light that Greenberg offers. So the article as it now stands does not conform to the guidelines for writing an article about the minority position. (Just as an aside, Joseph Greenberg was in the audience when I read my first professional paper at a linguistics conference. He was a very nice, polite, and warm man who asked a couple of very good questions. I disagree with the way he did historical linguistics.) (Taivo (talk) 01:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC))

(A quick note--I'll address the more substantial stuff tomorrow, when I'll have time--I have both books as well, and the discussion in American Indian Languages is indeed much more detailed and in-depth.) --Miskwito (talk) 01:43, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

With regard to bibliography, we should probably give pride of place to Campbell and Poser's Language Classification: History and Method (Cambridge University Press, 2008), as the most recent statement on the subject. VikSol (talk) 16:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately due to weight limitations on transatlantic flights I left all my books on the topic in Denmark and won't have access to them untill october. I agree very much with every thing that has been said about how the changes to the article should be implemented - and I wish to commend VikSol for his extremely colaborative and reasonable attitude towards the process.I wish more editors behaved like that. ·Maunus·ƛ· 02:37, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Maunus.

On a very minor note, I have reverted the change of some author-date citations to footnotes on the following grounds: (From Wikipedia:Citing sources#How to format citations: ) "The following are methods of inline citation used in Wikipedia: Footnote system (...) Parenthetical referencing". "Once a style is selected for an article it is inappropriate to change an article to another unless there is a reason that goes beyond mere choice of style." (From Wikipedia:Manual of style#General principles:) "An overriding principle on Wikipedia is that style and formatting should be applied consistently within articles, though not necessarily throughout the encyclopedia as a whole. One way of presenting information may be as good as another is, but consistency within articles promotes clarity and cohesion. (...) Where there is disagreement over which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor." Regards, VikSol (talk) 02:50, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough! --Miskwito (talk) 23:19, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, now I have time for a more thorough response. First off I'll echo Maunus' comment about how collaborative and helpful VikSol is being throughout this. I really do think we can come to a reasonable compromise solution when we're approaching the situation with those kinds of attitudes! Briefly, my reactions to your above points, VikSol, are as follows.

1. All good suggestions, and Taivo has also mentioned Campbell's American Indian Languages, in which a lengthy chapter is dedicated to discussing the methods underpinning Greenberg's Amerind grouping (and similar long-range groupings of other linguists in the past), and the method's weaknesses (in Campbell's view). I'd add that Ringe's publication(s) on the statistics of language comparison have been quite significant (again on the anti-Greenbergian side), as the article already notes--if anyone has access to any of them. Personally I only have Campbell's two books and some minor papers from the International Journal of American Linguistics, but I have easy access to Ruhlen's books, and I should be able to get ahold of most of Greenberg's stuff at the library.

2. I agree with your basic point here, and hopefully we're all in agreement that the article should ultimately give both viewpoints a fair hearing, as it were. In fact, there are some areas where opposing views are, in some sense, given too much prominence. Having such a long section on combating the notion that mass comparison is just comparing lexical items (rather than spending a shorter time simply describing what mass comparison is, and not focusing so much on opponents' views of MC) not only becomes tedious and inaccurate, but gives more prominence to the dispute than is really necessary or warranted (see below).

3. With regard to the "lexical" of "mass lexical comparison", I have two points. First, that Campbell quote, I would argue, doesn't actually suggest that Greenberg only compared lexical items (as Maunus notes, Campbell has spent a lot of time disputing some of Greenberg's proposed grammatical similarities; although, Campbell is indeed claiming that Greenberg places a great emphasis on vocabulary). Rather, the other key in that quote is "no technique which relies on inspectional similarities in vocabulary alone has proven adequate for establishing distant family relationships"--as opposed to one which relies on regular sound correspondences. My more significant point would be related to #2 above: while it's important to describe what mass comparison consists of, and to note disagreements over what it entails and/or various misunderstandings of it, a very long discussion specifically about just this issue isn't very useful.

Now, a few thoughts on where we should go from here. First of all, I'd suggest we come up with ideas for what the overarching framework of the article should look like. Having constant back-and-forths between "supporters of mass comparison say this, other linguists say this, then supporters of MC say this...", I think, isn't the best format we could have. I'd suggest something along the lines of:

1. Intro
2. History of MC, especially:
   1. Greenberg's African classification, and the theoretical writings contained in his African publications
   2. Greenberg's American classification
   3. Ruhlen
   4. The Moscow School MC-supporters
3. What MC consists of and how it's performed
4. The views of mainstream historical linguistics, including:
   1. Rejection of most groupings arrived at by MC, but especially:
      1. Mixed degrees of acceptance of Greenberg's various African families (though most Africanists still aren't supporters of MC itself, and Greenberg was building on earlier proposals)
      2. Essentially universal and vehement rejection of Amerind
   2. The chance of random matches (Ringe) and other theoretical objections

This is very simplified and skeletal, of course, and leaves a lot out (in particular, while I'm not a fan of the "X says and Y says and X says..." format, I'm having trouble visualizing how to remain fair to both views with just a section for each view). I'd also suggest that we make (a) new section(s) on the talk page soon, for ease of navigation. --Miskwito (talk) 00:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I would also say that we can't forget the stab Greenberg made at "Indo-Pacific" based on mass comparison--found in the Current Trends in Linguistics volume that covered New Guinea. (Taivo (talk) 00:35, 17 April 2009 (UTC))

Replies to Miskwito's proposals:

I think the addition of a history section is a good idea and I agree that it should follow the intro. A history of Greenberg's classifications is already present in Joseph Greenberg#Genetic classification of languages. To avoid duplication, I think the mass comparison article should provide a brief summary and that, generally speaking, any more extensive material should be put in the Joseph Greenberg article. However, it may be worth including material specifically relevant to MC.

It seems reasonable to add a mention of Ruhlen in this context.

The Moscow school has friendly relations with the Greenbergians but does not accept mass comparison. (Cp. Nostratic languages#Methodology.) It may be worth noting this.

The section "The myth of mass lexical comparison" needs to be reviewed and may have to be toned down and retitled. We can work out the details further on.

Beyond this, I find it hard to visualize the ultimate organization of the article in the abstract. I suggest we start going through the article sentence by sentence. I believe that as we do so it will become apparent what should be kept, changed, or reorganized.

I suggest we simply begin with the first sentence and work our way through to the last. VikSol (talk) 02:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Is article name biased?

In my opinion the title Mass lexical comparison itself was biased against Greenberg, by singling out one part of his method that was not meant to stand alone and criticizing it using exaggeration enabled by the isolation. Mass comparison is improved but still shows the same bias.

Surprisingly, there is presently no article on the entire subject, Long-range comparison or Long-range linguistics, that integrates specifics.

• There are articles on constructs like Macrofamily or Superfamily (linguistics).
• There are articles on specific examples of those, like Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Dene-Caucasian, Borean.
• There are articles on techniques like Mass comparison, Glottochronology, Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time (which uses typology not vocabulary)
• There are articles on practitioners like Joseph Greenberg, Sergei Starostin, Johanna Nichols and others.

But no survey article covering the field. --JWB (talk) 04:11, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that communis opinio itself is "biased against Greenberg". Therefore, writing apologetic of Greenberg such as this one are not really appropriate for Wikipedia. You don't need to worry about "long range comparison" getting too little or too unsympathetic press here. We have lots of editors touting this topic. What you do need to worry about is proper adherence to WP:DUE. We can cover obscure topics, but we must always take care to depict them from the perspective of the academic mainstream. --dab (𒁳) 16:26, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You can talk about that all you like, but this article is a great example of Wikipedia failing to distinguish between mainstream viewpoints (i.e. that mass comparison (under whichever moniker you like) doesn't actually work) and non-mainstream ones, and judging by this talk page, it's been like this for years. Honestly, it'd never happen, but Wikipedia would be better off nuking the article from orbit and starting fresh. I certainly don't have the energy to try to fix this pile of POV. Excalibre (talk) 05:53, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree. For example, Maunus's criticism above of the claim that families are sometimes generally accepted or not indepedent of reconstruction is still not vbeen addressed. All parties have evidently abandoned the article since April 17, 2009. It's irresponsible to leave the article in this state and allowing it to misinform or mislead the reader. This is where Wikipedia fails and one solution I can think of is simply to hide the article from the general reader, perhaps, as a quick-and-dirty solution, by turning it into a redirect to Joseph Greenberg's article. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:04, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Seriously it's still drenched in POV you guys

Although I did like this bit: "Greenberg replied that he had considered this very possibility in his previous work, which Ringe had failed to cite and thus, presumably, to read (Greenberg 1993, p. 79)." OOOOOH IT'S ON NOW. I think this conflict can only be resolved by a dance competition! Excalibre (talk) 06:05, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV

I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:

This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:

1. There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
2. It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
3. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:23, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I've re-added it because the massive POV issue remains, and no one seems to be addressing it.50.46.148.182 (talk) 02:04, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Removing POV tag (again)

I've gone ahead and removed the POV tag which was recently restored by an IP editor with no substantive commentary.

I have no previous involvement here, but I looked at the talk from a few years back and it looks like most of the issues discussed then were fixed. The IP stated that there was still a big POV problem, but didn't give us any idea about what s/he felt that issue was.

In any event, if there's still indeed an active dispute go ahead and put the tag back in, but please restart a substantive discussion here to let folks know specifically *what* is being disputed. Thanks! -Helvetica (talk) 07:09, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

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