The Fifth Department of Ravenna

The PIHTANC Hypothesis

The Proto-Indo-Hyperboreo-Turko-Australo-Niger-Congo (PIHTANC) hypothesis was a linguistic hypothesis uniting the Indo-European, Uralic, Australasian, Basque, Altaic, and Niger-Congo languages, proposed by Simon Kessel in 1968. The proposal suggested included suggestions such as a phonemic inventory of over 200 consonants, two (or possibly one) vowel, the reconstructed word for ‘what’ as ‘ku’, ‘mother’ as ‘mama’ and ‘father’ as ‘tata’. The theory was universally ridiculed by the linguistic community.

Selected quotations about the PIHTANC hypothesis

Kessel is undertaking an absolutely foolish project. He produces these outlandish claims with almost no evidence at all: it’s as if he is mocking linguistics.

— Noam Chomsky

I’ve made some crazy speculations, but I’m not that crazy.

— Joseph Greenberg

Whatever.

— Kenneth Lee Pike