The Nostratic hypothesis positing a common lingusitic ancestor for a wide range of language families including Indo-European, Uralic, and Afro-Asiatic has produced one of the most enduring and often intense controversies in linguistics. Overwhelmingly, though, both supporters of the hypothesis and those who reject it have not dealt directly with one anothers arguments. This volume brings together selected representatives of both sides, as well as a number of agnostic historical linguists, with the aim of examining the evidence for this particular hypothesis in the context of distant genetic relationships generally. The volume contains discussions of variants of the Nostratic hypothesis (papers by A. Bomhard, by J. Greenberg, and one by A. Manaster-Ramer, K. Baertsch, K. Adams, & P. Michalove), the mathematics of chance in determining the relationships posited for Nostratic ( papers by R. Oswalt and by D. Ringe), and the evidence from particular branches posited in Nostratic (papers by L. Campbell, by C. Hodge, and by A. Vovin) with responses and additional discussion by E. Hamp, B. Vine, W. Baxter and B. Comrie.