The Illusory Nostratic Hypothetical Linguistic Macrofamily

 I am referring to a hypothetical linguistic 'macrofamily' first postulated by the Danish linguist, Holger Pedersen in 1903 which is said to include recognised genuine language families: Indo-European (Indo-Germanic), Uralic, Altaic, Kartvelian, Afroasiatic, Koreanic, Japonic, Dravidian, Elamite, Sumerian, Nivkh, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskaleut. In other words, the majority of (but not the entirety of) all northern Eurasian languages.

Pedersen's theory is of course sheer nonsense and has long been rejected by serious scholars, being a fringe theory with no evidence to support it and NO proto-language to back it up! I can't help but question the motivation of Pedersen in dreaming up his fantasy macrofamily. Apart from this wild theory, he was a gifted linguist who made many important contributions to the subject of historical linguistics. It is only the 'Nostratic' theory which I am criticising.

The only part of the world where this theory has been given any credence in recent times is in the former USSR and one cannot help but suspect that there are political and nationalistic reasons for this. Even today we still hear talk of 'Eurasianism', a socio-political and geopolitical movement which seeks to place the political and cultural 'centre of gravity' within eastern Europe/western Asia, and mainly intended to counter the dominant western European/north American hegemony of today. I see the 'Nostratic' language theory and Eurasianism as two separate aspects or outgrowths of the same thing. Neither has any genuine validity.

The USSR was a superstate consisting of 15 republics spanning western Asia and eastern Europe. Even the modern Russian Federation is made up of 21 republics, the majority of the federation's territory (about 75%) is located in Asia. It is the largest multi-ethnic state in the world and one of the most diverse, although the top 'honour' in the diversity stakes belongs to Uganda. One can immediately see why the Eurasian movement and fringe theories like Pedersen's would appear to be very attractive to the former USSR and the modern Russian Federation!