EurasianStudies_0110..

January-March 2010 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume II., Issue 1.
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-> the IE languages are connected by morphological correspondences, that is: it is possible to identify
common grammatical categories, on the basis of either the ones which are actually attested or the ones
which can be attained through a process of ‘internal reconstruction’ 2. For example, the reconstructed
verbal system represents a pre-historic, rather uniform ‘point of convergence’ of the verbal system of the
various IE languages, as argued in Di Giovine (2009: 6 - 17-21).
Since the IE languages also display several remarkable affinities in the cultural and ideological
domain - as testified particularly by the cultural world of the classical languages (Latin and Greek),
Sanskrit and Old Germanic - and since these affinities cannot be accounted for in terms of contacts and
borrowing, these extraordinary cultural and formal affinities lend support to what is widely claimed,
that is: the IE theory is scientifically founded. There cannot be therefore any doubt that the concept of
‘language family’ does indeed comprise and represent a linguistic (as well as cultural) tradition shared
by a set of attested languages.
3. The limitations of the concept of ‘language family.
Within IE studies the equation: ‘linguistic family = ethnic family’ has enjoyed changing fortunes. At
the time of ‘Romanticism’ this identification constituted the basic assumption, the ideological
background of the concept of language family (see for example the position of Jacob Grimm). The
validity of this identification was then called into question by the so-called ‘neo-grammarians’ toward
the end of the nineteenth century, to resurface later on in the early twenty century with Wörter und
Sachen 3, and then in the 1970’s with the passionate search of the homeland of the (assumed) IE peoples.
The concept of ‘linguistic family’ has to be kept completely distinct from that of ‘ethnic group/family’.
The genetic relationship among languages is not be interpreted in terms of a progressive binary split of
speech communities, each of which will then form a new, independent ethnic group and speech
community. In other words, one should avoid any automatic identification of ‘language’ and ‘ethnos’,
and therefore reject as unfounded the notion of a IE Urvolk (this has recently been highlighted by the late
lamented Roberto Gusmani in his: Lingua, cultura e caratteri genetici in un’ottica ricostruttiva (Gusmani
2008: 118 ff), and has been pointed out several times by Belardi - see in particular Belardi (1990b: 80-86)).
According to Sokal and his school 4, the correlations established among genes – if and when
corresponding to established linguistic correlations – are simply to be considered as a consequence, as a
secondary result of pre-existent linguistic and cultural communities, and not viceversa, that is: as the
primary triggering factor of the existence of the linguistic communities in question. The latter thesis has
2 On some methodological aspects of internal reconstruction see Belardi (1990). See also Di Giovine (to appear) for an update of
these issues.
3 For a comprehensive analysis of these issues see Morpurgo Davies (1996) as well as (2009). In the latter work the Author
analyzes the horrid historical events resulted from the application the concept of ‘race’ to linguisitcs; see also Römer (1985) on
this topic.
4 Among the many publications in this field I would like to quote: Belle & Barbujani (2007), Madrigal & Barbujani (2007) and
Barbujani (2009).
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