John D. Bengtson (1948-2024) was an American historical and anthropologicallinguist.[1][2] He had been president and vice-president of theAssociation for the Study of Language in Prehistory, and had served as editor (or co-editor) of the journalMother Tongue (1996–2003, 2007–2024).[3] Since 2001 he had been a member/researcher ofEvolution of Human Languages,[4] an international project on the linguistic prehistory of humanity coordinated by theSanta Fe Institute. His areas of specialization included Scandinavian languages and linguistics, Indo-European linguistics,Dené–Caucasian (Sino-Caucasian) languages, andpaleolinguistics (the study of human prehistory through linguistic evidence).[5]
Bengtson, John D. 1994. (withMerritt Ruhlen) Global Etymologies. In M. Ruhlen,On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
1994. Edward Sapir and the 'Sino-Dene' Hypothesis.Anthropological Science 102.3: 207-230.
1997. Ein Vergleich von Buruschaski und Nordkaukasisch.Georgica 20: 88-94.
1998. Caucasian and Sino-Tibetan: A Hypothesis of S.A. Starostin.General Linguistics 36.1/2: 33-49.
2008. Materials for a Comparative Grammar of the Dene-Caucasian (Sino-Caucasian) Languages. InAspects of Comparative Linguistics, v. 3., pp. 45–118. Moscow: RSUH Publishers.
2008. (Ed.)In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory: Essays in the four fields of anthropology In honor Harold Crane Fleming. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
2008. The Languages of Northern Eurasia: Inference to the Best Explanation. InIn Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory, J.D. Bengtson (ed.), pp. 241–262.
2009. (withVáclav Blažek) Ainu and Austric: Evidence of Genetic Relationship.Journal of Language Relationship 2: 1-24.
2010. “Dene–Yeniseian” and the Rest of Dene–Caucasian: Part 3: The Burusho–Yeniseian (Karasuk) Hypothesis; Part 4: Burusho–Dene. InWorking Papers in Athabaskan Languages (Alaska Native Language Center Working Papers No. 8), ed. by Siri Tuttle & Justin Spence, pp. 118. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center.
2011. (with Václav Blažek) On the Burushaski–Indo–European hypothesis by I. Čašule.Journal of Language Relationship 6: 25-63.
2011. (with Pierre J. Bancel & Alain Matthey de l’Etang) Back to Proto–Sapiens (Part 2). The Global Kinship TermsPapa,Mama andKaka . In:Kinship, Language, and Prehistory: Per Hage and the Renaissance in Kinship Studies , Ed. by Doug Jones & Bojka Milicic, pp. 38–45. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
2013. (withHarold C. Fleming, Stephen L. Zegura, James B. Harrod & Shomarka O.Y. Keita) The Early Dispersions ofHomo sapiens and Proto–Human from Africa.Mother Tongue 18: 143-187.
2015. (withGeorge Starostin) The Dene–Sino–Caucasian hypothesis: state of the art and perspectives. Discussion draft posted on Academia.edu, 2015.
2015. (with Pierre J. Bancel & Alain Matthey de l’Etang) A Universal Proto-Interjection System in Modern-Day Humans.Mother Tongue 20: 249-261.
2016. (with Florent Dieterlen) Confirmation de l’ancienne extension des Basques par l’étude des dialectes de l’Europe de l’Ouest romane. [Confirmation of the former extension of the Basques from a study of the western Romance dialects of Europe.]Journal of Language Relationship 14/1: 1-27.
2016.Iarl andIormun-;Arya- andAryaman- : A Study in Indo-European Comparative Mythology.Comparative Mythology 2.1: 33–67. (December 2016)
2017. The Anthropological Context of Euskaro-Caucasian.Iran and the Caucasus 21.1: 75-91.doi:10.1163/1573384X-90000008
2018. How Do You Solve a Problem Like Euskera?Romance Philology 72: 15-33.
2019. (with Corinna Leschber) Notes on Euskaro-Caucasian (Vasconic) Substratum in western Indo-European Languages. Wékʷos. Revue d' études Indo-européennes 5: 11-50.
2020. Gerber’s ‘The Dene-Kusunda Hypothesis’: Archaeology and Genealogy of Linguistic Macro-Families and Its Significance in Tracing the History of Human Language. Man In India 100.1-2: 37-59.
2020. Comments on ‘Na-Dene and Beyond’; Sino-Dene (updated); the position of Haida. Mother Tongue 22: 11-42.doi:10.1515/mot-2020-220104
2020. (with Pierre J. Bancel & Alain Matthey de l’Etang) The Proto-Sapiens Prohibitive/Negative Particle *Ma. Mother Tongue 22: 223-240.doi:10.1515/mot-2020-220112
2021. (with Pierre J. Bancel): On The Pronoun Roots N ‘1sg’ and M ‘2sg’ In the Native Languages of the Americas and Their Historical Meaning. Mother Tongue 23: 33–53.doi:10.31826/mot-2021-230106
2021. (with Corinna Leschber): Notes on some Pre-Greek words in relation to Euskaro-Caucasian (North Caucasian + Basque). Journal of Language Relationship / Voprosy jazykovogo rodstva 19/2: 71-98.doi:10.1515/jlr-2021-191-210
2022. Basque and its Closest Relatives: A New Paradigm. An Updated Study of the Euskaro-Caucasian (Vasco-Caucasian) Hypothesis. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press.
