Language Phylogenies: Modelling the evolution of language.
Abstract
Recent years have seen Bayesian phylogenetic methods from evolutionary biology applied to questions about language evolution in two major contexts. First, language phylogenies are now routinely used to make inferences and test hypotheses about human prehistory. Second, language phylogenies provide a solid backbone 10 to test hypotheses about how aspects of language and culture have evolved in three key ways: by revealing the evolutionary dynamics, by modelling the trait history, and testing coevolutionary hypotheses. In this chapter I will survey this literature, present some case studies that highlight how these tools have been and continue to be useful, and discuss some shortcomings and open problems.
Authors
Citation
Greenhill SJ. 2023. Language Phylogenies. The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution, C61P1-C61P248.
Published 22 May 2023
@article{Greenhill2023,
title = {Language Phylogenies: Modelling the evolution of language.},
author = {Greenhill, Simon J.},
journal = {Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution},
pages = {726--744},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
year = {2023},
doi = {10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198869252.013.61},
url = {https://simon.net.nz/articles/language-phylogenies-handbook/},
}46 citations · FWCI 314.1 · top 1% cited · OpenAlex