The Indo-European Controversy

Facts and Fallacies in Historical Linguistics

Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Language Arts, Linguistics, Science & Nature, Science
Cover of the book The Indo-European Controversy by Asya Pereltsvaig, Martin W. Lewis, Cambridge University Press
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Author: Asya Pereltsvaig, Martin W. Lewis ISBN: 9781316288498
Publisher: Cambridge University Press Publication: April 30, 2015
Imprint: Cambridge University Press Language: English
Author: Asya Pereltsvaig, Martin W. Lewis
ISBN: 9781316288498
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication: April 30, 2015
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Language: English

Over the past decade, a group of prolific and innovative evolutionary biologists has sought to reinvent historical linguistics through the use of phylogenetic and phylogeographical analysis, treating cognates like genes and conceptualizing the spread of languages in terms of the diffusion of viruses. Using these techniques, researchers claim to have located the origin of the Indo-European language family in Neolithic Anatolia, challenging the near-consensus view that it emerged in the grasslands north of the Black Sea thousands of years later. But despite its widespread celebration in the global media, this new approach fails to withstand scrutiny. As languages do not evolve like biological species and do not spread like viruses, the model produces incoherent results, contradicted by the empirical record at every turn. This book asserts that the origin and spread of languages must be examined primarily through the time-tested techniques of linguistic analysis, rather than those of evolutionary biology.

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Over the past decade, a group of prolific and innovative evolutionary biologists has sought to reinvent historical linguistics through the use of phylogenetic and phylogeographical analysis, treating cognates like genes and conceptualizing the spread of languages in terms of the diffusion of viruses. Using these techniques, researchers claim to have located the origin of the Indo-European language family in Neolithic Anatolia, challenging the near-consensus view that it emerged in the grasslands north of the Black Sea thousands of years later. But despite its widespread celebration in the global media, this new approach fails to withstand scrutiny. As languages do not evolve like biological species and do not spread like viruses, the model produces incoherent results, contradicted by the empirical record at every turn. This book asserts that the origin and spread of languages must be examined primarily through the time-tested techniques of linguistic analysis, rather than those of evolutionary biology.

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