ABSTRACT
I think it’s appropriate to ask what the purpose of our genetic classification is. I believe that most historical linguists value the classifications because they help us find out about the histories of the languages in a family. We reconstruct parts of their common protolanguage and then use those reconstructions to study and compare the changes that have occurred in the various daughter languages. In other words, to be useful to a historical linguist, a hypothesis of genetic relationship must be fruitful: a valid genetic grouping will permit reconstruction and thus lead to be a better understanding of the member languages and their histories. If a genetic hypothesis does not lead to new insights of these kinds, therein it is sterile and, within linguistics, useless.
