Bridging the Pre-language Gap

Abstract

In this chapter, I critically examine the foundations of two major research programs aimed at filling the gap between the completion of glottogenesis and the known ancient languages: macro-comparativists in historical linguistics and the unification of genetic approaches with linguistic approaches (again of macro-comparativist tendency) in the series of studies led by Luca Cavalli-Sforza. The super-objective “to reconstruct a single proto-European language” (whether “proto-Indo-European” or “Nostratic”) seems to be dubious. In my alternative approach, I suggest a series of macrosocial laws of linguistic evolution based mainly on common sense and historical intuition. The Toba volcano eruption circa 74 thousand years ago (hereafter—kya) led to the “volcanic winter” catastrophe and significant depopulation. The macroprocesses of language evolution accompanied the settlement of sapienses on continents and islands, ethnogenesis, and the stages of political evolution according to R. Carneiro, and world-system evolution according to I. Wallerstein. The number of primary language families (with the apparent close kinship of languages) seems constant, but the number of languages has changed dramatically.