User:Cyberherbalist/sandbox/Brian Stubbs

Brian Darrel Stubbs (born April 25, 1949) is an American author, composer, columnist, and a leading authority in comparative Uto-Aztecan linguistics. He retired after 45 years of teaching at the College of Eastern Utah/Utah State University (CEU/USU) Extension in Blanding, Utah, Utah, and researching and writing on Native American linguistics. He taught English, English as a Second Language (ESL), comparative linguistics, math, and music at the same institution.

As a linguist, he is perhaps best known as a UAnist – a leading authority in comparative Uto-Aztecan linguistics. His book Uto-Aztecan: A Comparative Vocabulary is the largest in the field, double the size of previous works on comparative Uto-Aztecan studies.

He has also authored non-linguistic books.

Background and education
Stubbs was born in New York State, and attended Provo High School in Provo, Utah in 1967. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and served a full-time mission for the church, speaking Navajo. He married Silvia Canelo (from Argentina) in Utah County, Utah, on March 30, 1971. They have five children.

He earned his Master of Arts in linguistics at the University of Utah, under the tutelage of Uto-Aztecanists including Wick Miller, Ray Freeze, David Iannucci, and Mauricio Mixco. He has a PhD ABD in Near Eastern languages and linguistics, also from the University of Utah, with course work and comprehensive exams in Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, and Egyptian.

Academic career
As a professional linguist, Semitist, and UAnist, Stubbs studied several language families, but eventually specialized in the Uto-Aztecan language family.

After publishing several articles, four of them in the International Journal of American Linguistics, Brian decided that articles are too haphazard a way of scattering one’s ideas all over in hopes that subsequent scholars would have the patience to gather them together for a cohesive view of one’s thoughts on a matter, so he then published Uto-Aztecan: A Comparative Vocabulary (2011), containing 2,703 cognate sets and extensive discussion on the comparative phonology of the Uto-Aztecan branches and languages. That volume was favorably reviewed, and was welcomed and praised by the other Uto-Aztecan specialists.

He was first a Semitist — studying Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, as well as Egyptian — but then found linguistics fascinating enough for a detour to complete an M.A. in Linguistics from the University of Utah, before resuming coursework toward a PhD (ABD) in Semitic languages and linguistics. Nevertheless, his research interests remained in Uto-Aztecan, a language family of some 30 languages in the U.S. Southwest and Mexico (his M.A. focus). Then, 100 years after Edward Sapir (1913, 1915), established Uto-Aztecan as a language family, Stubbs published Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan (2015), demonstrating substantial Semitic and Egyptian components in Uto-Aztecan. In fact, during that intervening century, nine phonological puzzles have evaded solution from Uto-Aztecan specialists; however, the underlying Semitic component explains seven of the nine. While a Native American language family tie to the Ancient Near East was expected to be controversial, no one has substantively refuted it. It was sent to the best 15 Uto-Aztecan specialists, some Semitic scholars, and other linguists: among the 30 recipients, most were silent, a dozen offered positive responses, and two or three said ‘no, can’t be’ but offered no specifics to counter its viability. John Robertson (Harvard PhD) and Dirk Elzinga published positive reviews. Among the more interesting responses was that of David H. Kelley (Harvard PhD who published in anthropology, linguistics, and contributed to deciphering the Mayan glyphs): “The thick thing came in the mail, and I did not want to tackle it, but dutifully opened it, intending to look at a page or two. However, I started to read and ended up reading the whole book. It is the most interesting and significant piece of research I have seen in years.”

Discussion
Though expected to be controversial, his 2015 Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan establishes the sound correspondences, much fossilized morphology, unusual semantic combinations preserved, and other parallels demonstrating a Semitic and Late Egyptian infusion into ancient Uto-Aztecan. It illuminates how the underlying Semitic and Egyptian forms explain seven of nine phonological puzzles that Uto-Aztecan specialists had not solved since Edward Sapir’s establishing Uto-Aztecan as a viable language family 100 years earlier (Sapir 1913, 1915).

If three to five language families all apparently point to the same infusion or presence, it would be an exponentially stronger case with each one. However, Stubbs is confident that somewhere between 90-99% of the 1500+ linguistic parallels will pass muster in the long run, though some adjustments are always necessary. Even in Sapir's founding UA works, Miller and subsequent UAnists tossed out four or five of his 150-200 sets (2%).. Stubbs brought back in only one or two that appear valid.

Given that the parallels match Late Egyptian, but not Middle Egyptian, and that the Aramaic and Hebrew/ Phoenician are distinct and also fit the range of about 2500-3000 years ago--these depths are only the same or a little more than many branches of Indo-European (IE).