In Defense of the Comparative Method, or The End of the Vovin Controversy In memory of Sergei S
A. V. aóÄç, G. S. pí~êçëíáå Moscow, Russian State University for the Humanities
Пiскен асқа жеушi кѳп, Бiткен iске сыншы кѳп. When the meal is ready, there’ll be plenty of eaters. When the work is finished, there’ll be plenty of critics. An old Kazakh proverb
It would not be an exaggeration to say that long-range comparison to- day does not enjoy a good deal of support from historical linguists all over the world. The reasons for this all too well known scepticism are numerous, with both the «long-rangers» and the «scepticists» to be blamed depending on the situation; yet the main reason could probably be defined as a fatal lack of understanding between the two sides, so that «long-rangers» are fre- quently accused of sins they never committed in the first place, whereas «scepticists» are often treated by «long rangers» as little more than annoying impedimenta for their work despite the fact that their scientific work, more often than not, is important for the purposes of long-range comparison. Perhaps one of the factors explaining this unpleasant situation has been the relative reluctance of the Moscow school of comparative linguistics — ar- guably the world’s most active proponent of long-range comparison — to engage in detailed theoretical and methodological discussions, preferring in- stead to concentrate on mostly practical work in such fields as Altaic, Nos- tratic, Sino-Caucasian, Austric, and others. While such discussions are not generally known to have much practical use, they at least help to lay down one’s scientific principles in clear, accessible ways, reducing the degree of misunderstanding and allowing «outside» readers to feel more filled in on the current state of the art. Thus it is only natural that, from time to time, the basic guidelines for the work of the Moscow school be laid out in print, if only to remind the readers of why this work can — and should — be consid- ered scientific, and its results (some of them, at least) valid. A recent review by Alexander sçîáå [VOVIN 2005] of the newly issued «Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages» [EDAL] by three mem- bers of the Moscow school (one of them among the authors of this article), in our view, presents a good opportunity for such a theoretical excursion. First, the review, written in a starkly negative tone (and somewhat boldly subtitled «The End Of The Altaic Controversy»), is not so much a criticism of concrete 20 A. DóÄçI=G. Sí~êçëíáå. In Defense..., or The End of the Vovin Controversy
Altaic etymologies (although there is plenty of concrete criticisms) as it is a general condemnation of the «methodology», presumably employed by the authors in order to arrive at their corpus of comparative data: «...the EDAL authors’ methodology is often at odds with what is considered standard methodology in mainstream historical linguistics» [VOVIN 2005: 3]. Further- more, all of the problems with this «non-standard» methodology are care- fully spelt out and enumerated, making the review a perfect encapsulation of all the numerous cases of criticism on the part of other opponents of long- range comparison — as well as adding new lines of discussion on its own. Second, Alexander sçîáå (from now on — AV for short) is by no means a stranger to macro-comparative linguistics. Until recently, he himself has been one of the strongest advocates of the Altaic theory, producing a string of works that occasionally offered valuable insights into specific issues in the field of comparative Altaic phonology, morphology, and lexics (e. g. [VOVIN 99 ], [VOVIN 99 a], [VOVIN 999], [VOVIN 200 a] and others). His general knowledge of the methodology and achievements of the Moscow school certainly surpasses that of many of its ardent Western critics. Thus, his former willingness to work within that particular paradigm of thought makes the reasons for his subsequent radical rejection of that paradigm particularly in- teresting, and his arguments well worth replying to in detail. It is also worth noting that [VOVIN 2005] is not AV’s first venture into sharp polemics with macro-comparative efforts on the part of Russian scient- ists. A very similar line of arguing had already been undertaken by him in [VOVIN 2002] against the Sino-Caucasian hypothesis (genetic relationship be- tween North Caucasian, Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan languages; below — SCH for short), scientifically formulated and advanced by the late S. A. pí~êçëíáå, not coincidentally, also one of the authors of [EDAL]1. And since that parti- cular article has, for various reasons, until now also remained unanswered, we have deemed it useful to address both at the same time — because, as has already been indicated, AV’s criticism goes deeper than simply pecking away at particular Altaic or Sino-Caucasian etymologies; he asks whether, in fact, Altaic or Sino-Caucasian can ever be proven to exist, let alone reconstructed, by means of procedures employed by the main proponents of their existence. For AV the answer — in both cases — today lies starkly in the negat- ive. The reasons are many and diverse, but most of them could easily be generalized into the following nine points:
1 [VOVIN 2002] is, in fact, just one part of a lengthier discussion, which began with [VOVIN 99 b], a critical evaluation of several theories on the origins of the Chinese language, and was later continued by S. A. pí~êçëíáå’s response [STAROSTIN 2002]. However, since most of the critical arguments against Sino-Caucasian, raised in [VO- VIN 99 b], were already answered in [STAROSTIN 2002], as of now we will concentrate our primary attention on [VOVIN 2002], centered — by the author’s own admission — around methodological issues more than particular etymologies and correspondences. А. Ды , Г. Сттин. В защиту сравнительно-исторического метода 2