Dated language phylogenies shed light on the ancestry of Sino-Tibetan
Laurent Sagarta,1, Guillaume Jacquesa,1, Yunfan Laib, Robin J. Ryderc, Valentin Thouzeauc, Simon J. Greenhillb,d, and Johann-Mattis Listb,2
aCentre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l’Asie Orientale, CNRS, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 75006 Paris, France; bDepartment of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena 07743, Germany; cCentre de Recherches en Mathe ́matiques de la De ́cision, CNRS, Universite ́ Paris-Dauphine, PSL University, 75775 Paris, France; and dAustralian Research Council Center of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
Edited by Balthasar Bickel, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, and accepted by Editorial Board Member Richard G. Klein April 8, 2019 (received for review October 19, 2018)
The Sino-Tibetan language family is one of the world’s largest and most prominent families, spoken by nearly 1.4 billion people. Despite the importance of the Sino-Tibetan languages, their pre- history remains controversial, with ongoing debate about when and where they originated. To shed light on this debate we develop a database of comparative linguistic data, and apply the linguistic comparative method to identify sound correspondences and establish cognates. We then use phylogenetic methods to infer the relationships among these languages and estimate the age of their origin and homeland. Our findings point to Sino- Tibetan originating with north Chinese millet farmers around 7200 B.P. and suggest a link to the late Cishan and the early Yangshao cultures.
Laurent Sagarta,1, Guillaume Jacquesa,1, Yunfan Laib, Robin J. Ryderc, Valentin Thouzeauc, Simon J. Greenhillb,d, and Johann-Mattis Listb,2
aCentre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l’Asie Orientale, CNRS, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 75006 Paris, France; bDepartment of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena 07743, Germany; cCentre de Recherches en Mathe ́matiques de la De ́cision, CNRS, Universite ́ Paris-Dauphine, PSL University, 75775 Paris, France; and dAustralian Research Council Center of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
Edited by Balthasar Bickel, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, and accepted by Editorial Board Member Richard G. Klein April 8, 2019 (received for review October 19, 2018)
The Sino-Tibetan language family is one of the world’s largest and most prominent families, spoken by nearly 1.4 billion people. Despite the importance of the Sino-Tibetan languages, their pre- history remains controversial, with ongoing debate about when and where they originated. To shed light on this debate we develop a database of comparative linguistic data, and apply the linguistic comparative method to identify sound correspondences and establish cognates. We then use phylogenetic methods to infer the relationships among these languages and estimate the age of their origin and homeland. Our findings point to Sino- Tibetan originating with north Chinese millet farmers around 7200 B.P. and suggest a link to the late Cishan and the early Yangshao cultures.
Significance
Given its size and geographical extension, Sino-Tibetan is of the highest importance for understanding the prehistory of East Asia, and of neighboring language families. Based on a dataset of 50 Sino-Tibetan languages, we infer phylogenies that date the origin of the language family to around 7200 B.P., linking the origin of the language family with the late Cishan and the early Yangshao cultures.
Given its size and geographical extension, Sino-Tibetan is of the highest importance for understanding the prehistory of East Asia, and of neighboring language families. Based on a dataset of 50 Sino-Tibetan languages, we infer phylogenies that date the origin of the language family to around 7200 B.P., linking the origin of the language family with the late Cishan and the early Yangshao cultures.