Next generation language phylogenies

Abstract:

The biggest advance in historical linguistics over recent years has been the application of phylogenetic methods. This is no longer a marginal enterprise inflicted by non-linguists on innocent linguistic data, rather there are more than 330 publications tackling a strikingly diverse range of topics.3 This sheer number indicates that phylogenetic methods are tools that historical linguists find useful to answer the questions they care about. However, where do we go from here to make sure our phylogenetic toolkit is best placed to answer the questions we will want to answer in the future?