"Almost all literature on language spreads assumes, at least implicitly, either demographic expansion or migration as basic mechanism, but in fact language shift is the most conservative assumption and should be the default assumption. There is no reason to believe that the mechanism of spread has any impact on the linguistic geography of the spread … simple phylogenetic descent [i.e., the tree model] is insufficient for tracing the origin and dispersal of the world’s languages and peoples."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
quoted in Danino, M. (2019). Methodological issues in the Indo-European debate. Journal of Biosciences, 44(3), 68.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tree_model
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Tree model
2 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Tree model →
Related Quotes
"‘The Tree Model presupposes a flawed understanding of language diversification processes. In a nutshell, cladistic (t…"
"Examples could be multiplied to show that language, long held to be the main, if not the sole, differentiating mark o…"
"A question therefore arises: what is the relevance of archaeological material if any sort of assemblage present at th…"
"Denis Sinor (1999:396), a distinguished linguist and historian of Central Asia, takes a position that more might cons…"
"Linguists cannot associate an archaeological culture with words, syntax, and grammar, and archaeologists cannot make …"
"In the context of a renewed fashion of relating archaeology, culture, and language it is well to remember that neithe…"
"It has yet to be demonstrated that language expansions can be traced through similarities in material culture or that…"
"Contemporary methodologies, linguistic or archaeological, for determining the spoken language of a remote archaeologi…"
"Linguists too often assign languages to archaeological cultures, while archaeologists are often too quick to assign t…"
"Ethnicity and language are not so easily wedded to an archaeological signature. Material residues as well as the unit…"