Editing Proto-Human language (section)

== Criticism ==

Many linguists reject the methods used to determine these forms. Several areas of criticism are raised with the methods Ruhlen and Gell-Mann employed. The essential basis of these criticisms is that the words being compared do not show common ancestry; the reasons for this vary. One is [[onomatopoeia]]: for example, the suggested root for ''smell'' listed above, *''čuna'', may simply be a result of many languages employing an onomatopoeic word that sounds like sniffing, snuffling, or smelling. Another is the [[taboo]] quality of certain words. [[Lyle Campbell]] points out that many established proto-languages do not contain an equivalent word for *''putV'' 'vulva' because of how often such taboo words are replaced in the lexicon, and notes that it "strains credibility to imagine" that a Proto-World form of such a word would survive in many languages.

Using the criteria that Bengtson and Ruhlen employ to find cognates to their proposed roots, Campbell found seven possible matches to their root for woman *''kuna'' in Spanish, including ''cónyuge'' 'wife, spouse', ''chica'' 'girl', and ''cana'' 'old (of a woman)' (adjective). He then goes on to show how what Bengtson and Ruhlen would identify as reflexes of *''kuna'' cannot possibly be related to a Proto-World word for 'woman'. ''Cónyuge'', for example, comes from the Latin root meaning 'to join', so its origin had nothing to do with the word 'woman'; ''chica'' is related to a Latin word meaning 'insignificant thing'; ''cana'' comes from the Latin word for 'white', and again shows a history unrelated to the word for 'woman'.<ref>Campbell & Poser (2008:370–372)</ref> Campbell asserts that these types of problems are endemic to the methods used by Ruhlen and others.

Some linguists question the very possibility of tracing language elements so far back into the past. Campbell notes that given the time elapsed since the origin of human language, every word from that time would have been replaced or changed beyond recognition in all languages today. Campbell harshly criticizes efforts to reconstruct a Proto-Human language, saying: "the search for global etymologies is at best a hopeless waste of time, at worst an embarrassment to linguistics as a discipline, unfortunately confusing and misleading to those who might look to linguistics for understanding in this area".<ref>Campbell & Poser (2008:393)</ref>