Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: In On the Origin of Species, Darwin proposed that human races and languages evolved in concert following a tree-like history of splits and isolation (1). Linguists and anthropologists have long been skeptical of this idea because historical and ethnographic evidence suggest that group boundaries are fluid and differentially permeable to the movement of peoples and languages. For this reason, as Sapir (2) so eloquently put it, “the history of each is apt to follow a distinctive course.” In PNAS, Creanza et al. (3) weigh in on this debate and provide a conceptual and methodological framework for future studies of population genetic and linguistic coevolution.
Author: Keith Hunley
Institution: University of New Mexico
Language: English
Subfield: Cultural Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1543046368