Ernst Pulgram

Ernst Pulgram (September 18, 1915 – August 17, 2005) was an American linguist of Austrian origins whose main interest lay in the Italic and Romance languages.

Quotes

• No reputable linguist pretends that Proto-Indo-European reconstructions represent a reality, and the unpronounceability of the asterisked formulae is not a legitimate argument against reconstruction.
  • Ernst Pulgram, quoted by Jean-Paul Demoule, The Indo-Europeans: Archaeology, Language, Race, and the Search for the Origins of the West (2023)

• We now find ourselves in possession of two entirely different items, both of which we call Proto-Indo-European: one, a set of reconstructed formulae not representative of any reality; the other, an undiscovered (possibly undiscoverable) language of whose reality we may be certain.
  • Pulgram, E. 1959. "Proto-Indo-European Reality and Reconstruction." Language 35:421-426. quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. ch 4

• Arguing about 'Proto-Indo-European' can be meaningful and fruitful . . . if we always explain whether we are talking about the one or the other— which, as we well know, we do not do.
  • Pulgram, E. 1959. "Proto-Indo-European Reality and Reconstruction." Language 35:421-426. quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. ch 4

• We must not make the mistake of confusing our methods, and the results flowing from them, with the facts; we must not delude ourselves into believing that our retrogressive method of reconstruction matches, step by step, the real progression of linguistic history.
  • Pulgram, E. 1959. "Proto-Indo-European Reality and Reconstruction." Language 35:421-426. Quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. ch 4

• Now the more sophisticated among us could easily object here that it would take a great deal of naivete on the part of linguistic palaeontologists to propound such views, . . . yet such naivete seems to enjoy the status of high acumen, as anyone can see who reads some of the numerous volumes that deal with the "Indo-Eutopeans," their lives and their mores. But if the authorship of such works is not astonishing enough, the uncritical and admiring credulity bestowed upon them by a vast number of scholars certainly is.
  • (Pulgram 1958, 147) in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press.
  • Pulgram, E. 1958. The Tongues of Italy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

• It is an elementary mistake to equate common Indo-European words with Proto-Indo- European words and to base thereon conclusions concerning the Proto-European Urvolk or Urheimat. Yet this is precisely what has often been done. . . . impassioned linguistic palaeontologists have gone even further. From the existence of certain items of vocabulary in all or a majority of the extant Indo-European languages, and blandly ignoring all the pitfalls just noted, they even fabricated conclusions concerning the social organization, the religion, the mores, the race of the Proto-Indo-European.
  • (Pulgram 1958, 145-146) in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press.
  • Pulgram, E. 1958. The Tongues of Italy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.