"‘The Tree Model presupposes a flawed understanding of language diversification processes. In a nutshell, cladistic (tree-based) representations are entirely based on the fiction that the main reason why new languages emerge is the abrupt division of a language community into separate social groups. Trees fail to capture the very common situation in which linguistic diversification results from the fragmenta- tion of a language into a network of dialects which remained in contact with each other for an extended period of time’ (François 2014, p. 162)."