Bayesian phylolinguistics infers the internal structure and the time-depth of the Turkic language family

Despite more than 200 years of research, the internal structure of the Turkic language family remains subject to debate. Classifications of Turkic so far are based on both classical historical–comparative linguistic and distance-based quantitative approaches. Although these studies yield an internal structure of the Turkic family, they cannot give us an understanding of the statistical robustness of the proposed branches, nor are they capable of reliably inferring absolute divergence dates, without assuming constant rates of change. Here we use computational Bayesian phylogenetic methods to build a phylogeny of the Turkic languages, express the reliability of the proposed branches in terms of probability, and estimate the time-depth of the family within credibility intervals. To this end, we collect a new dataset of 254 basic vocabulary items for thirty-two Turkic language varieties based on the recently introduced Leipzig–Jakarta list. Our application of Bayesian phylogenetic inference on lexical data of the Turkic languages is unprecedented. The resulting phylogenetic tree supports a binary structure for Turkic and replicates most of the conventional sub-branches in the Common Turkic branch. We calculate the robustness of the inferences for subgroups and individual languages whose position in the tree seems to be debatable. We infer the time-depth of the Turkic family at around 2100 years before present, thus providing a reliable quantitative basis for previous estimates based on classical historical linguistics and lexicostatistics

Millet agriculture dispersed from Northeast China to the Russian Far East: integrating archaeology, genetics, and linguistics

Broomcorn and foxtail millets were being cultivated in the West Liao River basin in Northeast China by at least the sixth millennium BCE. However, when and how millet agriculture spread from there to the north and east remains poorly understood. Here, we trace the dispersal of millet agriculture from Northeast China to the Russian Far East and weigh demic against cultural diffusion as mechanisms for that dispersal. We compare two routes for the spread of millet into the Russian Far East discussed in previous research—an inland route across Manchuria, and a coastal/inland route initially following the Liaodong Peninsula and Yalu River—using an archaeological dataset including millet remains, pottery, stone tools, spindle whorls, jade and figurines. We then integrate the archaeological evidence with linguistic and genetic findings in an approach we term ‘triangulation’. We conclude that an expansion of agricultural societies in Northeast China during the Middle to Late Hongshan (4000–3000 BCE) coincided with the arrival of millet cultivation in eastern Heilongjiang and the Primorye province of the Russian Far East. Our findings support the inland, Manchuria route for the dispersal of millet to the Primorye and suggest that, as well as long-distance cultural exchange, demic diffusion was also involved. Our results are broadly compatible with the farming/language dispersal hypothesis and consistent with a link between the spread of millet farming and proto-Tungusic, the language ancestral to the contemporary Tungusic languages, in late Neolithic Northeast Asia. © 2020 The Author

Proto-Tungusic in time and space

Although there is a general consensus among historical comparative linguists that the Tungusic languages are genealogically related and descend from a common ancestral language, the internal structure of the family, its age, homeland and prehistoric cultural context remain subject to debate. In addition to four competing concepts of classification, the linguistic literature yields a wide range of time estimations for the family covering more than a millennium as well as four different proposals with regard to the location of the homeland covering Eastern Siberia and Manchuria. Here we will combine the power of traditional comparative historical linguistics and computational phylogenetics to shed light on the prehistory of the Tungusic languages. Our aim is to build on a recent Bayesian verification of the Tungusic family and examine its implications in determining a plausible time depth, location and cultural context of the ancestral proto-Tungusic speech community. We will compare spatial inferences based on two different statistically well-supported Tungusic classifications, namely one in which the break-up of Manchuric constitutes the first split in the family as well as a North-South classification with a northern branch including Even, Evenki, Negidal, Oroqen, Solon, Oroch and Udehe as opposed to a southern branch including Manchuric and Nanaic languages. Situating Proto-Tungusic in time and space, we will estimate the break-up of Proto-Tungusic in the beginning of the first millennium and place its homeland in the area around Lake Khanka. Our study pushes the field forward in answering some tantalizing questions about the prehistory of the Tungusic family, providing a quantitative basis for some conflicting hypotheses and in triangulating linguistics, archaeology and genetics into a holistic approach to the Tungusic past

About millets and beans, words and genes

In this special collection, we address the origin and dispersal of the Transeurasian languages, i.e. Japonic, Koreanic, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic, from an interdisciplinary perspective. Our key objective is to effectively synthesize linguistic, archaeological and genetic evidence in a single approach, for which we use the term ‘triangulation’. The 10 articles collected in this volume contribute to the question of whether and to what extent the early spread of Transeurasian languages was driven by agriculture in general, and by economic reliance on millet cultivation in particular.The Transeurasian languages Farming language dispersal - Three mechanisms - Indo-European is not a schoolbook example - Language dispersal without farming, farming dispersal without language - A more general subsistence model The ancient DNA revolution Organization and argumentatio

Tracing population movements in ancient East Asia through the linguistics and archaeology of textile production [Review]

Archaeolinguistics, a field which combines language reconstruction and archaeology as a source of information on human prehistory, has much to offer to deepen our understanding of the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Northeast Asia. So far, integrated comparative analyses of words and tools for textile production are completely lacking for the Northeast Asian Neolithic and Bronze Age. To remedy this situation, here we integrate linguistic and archaeological evidence of textile production, with the aim of shedding light on ancient population movements in Northeast China, the Russian Far East, Korea and Japan. We show that the transition to more sophisticated textile technology in these regions can be associated not only with the adoption of millet agriculture but also with the spread of the languages of the so-called ‘Transeurasian’ family. In this way, our research provides indirect support for the Language/Farming Dispersal Hypothesis, which posits that language expansion from the Neolithic onwards was often associated with agricultural colonization