Depending on the age of the language family under consideration, its homeland may be known with near-certainty (in the case of historical or near-historical migrations) or it may be very uncertain (in the case of deep prehistory). Next to internal linguistic evidence, the reconstruction of a prehistoric homeland makes use of a variety of disciplines, includingarchaeology andarchaeogenetics.
There are several methods to determine the homeland of a given language family. One method is based on the vocabulary that can be reconstructed for the proto-language. This vocabulary – especially terms for flora and fauna – can provide clues for the geographical and ecological environment in which the proto-language was spoken. An estimate for the time-depth of the proto-language is necessary in order to account for prehistorical changes in climate and the distribution of flora and fauna.[1][2]
Another method is based on thelinguistic migration theory (first proposed byEdward Sapir), which states that the most likely candidate for the last homeland of a language family can be located in the area of its highest linguistic diversity.[3] This presupposes an established view about the internal subgrouping of the language family. Different assumptions about high-order subgrouping can thus lead to very divergent proposals for a linguistic homeland (e.g.Isidore Dyen's proposal forNew Guinea as the center of dispersal of theAustronesian languages).[4] The linguistic migration theory has its limits because it only works when linguistic diversity evolves continuously without major disruptions. Its results can be distorted e.g. when this diversity is wiped out by more recent migrations.[5]
AlthoughDravidian languages are now concentrated in southern India, isolated pockets further north, placenames andsubstrate influences onIndo-Aryan languages indicate that they were once spoken more widely across theIndian subcontinent.[11] ReconstructedProto-Dravidian terms for flora and fauna support the idea that Dravidian is indigenous to India.[12] Proponents of a migration from the northwest cite the location ofBrahui, a hypothesized connection to the undecipheredIndus script, and claims ofa link toElamite.[13]
Turkic
Turkic languages are today spoken across an area stretching from northwest China to the edge of Europe, butProto-Turkic lexical items about the climate, topography, flora, fauna and subsistence point to a homeland in the taiga-steppe zone of southern Siberia and Mongolia around theAltai-Sayan region.[14] Early contact withMongolic languages also points to this area.[15] Genetic studies suggest that most of the expansion of the language family was due to language replacement rather than migration, but have identified shared elements originating from the South Siberia-Mongolia area.[16]
Uralic
Inherited tree names seem to indicate anUralic homeland to the east of theUral Mountains. The internal branching of the family suggests an area between theOb River andYenisey River.[17] Uralic speakers are not genetically distinguished from their neighbours, but do share a genetic component that is of Siberian origin.[18][19]
All modernKoreanic varieties are descended from the language ofUnified Silla, which ruled the southern two-thirds of the Korean peninsula between the 7th and 10th centuries.[23][24] Evidence for the earlier linguistic history of the peninsula is extremely sparse.[25] The orthodox view among Korean social historians is that the Korean people migrated to the peninsula from the north, but no archaeological evidence of such a migration has been found.[26][27]
Sino-Tibetan
The reconstruction ofSino-Tibetan is much less developed than for other major families, so its higher-level structure and time depth remain unclear.[28] Proposed homelands and periods include: the upper and middle reaches of theYellow River about 4–8 kya, associated with the hypothesis of a top-level branching between Chinese and the rest (most likely); southwesternSichuan around 9 kya, associated with the hypothesis that Chinese and Tibetan form a subbranch;Northeast India (the area of maximal diversity) 9–10 kya.[29]
Austroasiatic is widely held to be the oldest family in mainland Southeast Asia, with its current discontinuous distribution resulting from the later arrival of other families. The various branches share a great deal of vocabulary concerning rice cultivation, but few related to metals.[32] Identification of the homeland of the family has been hampered by the lack of progress on its branching. The main proposals areNorthern India (favoured by those who assume an early branching ofMunda),Southeast Asia (the area of maximal diversity; most likely) and southern China (based on claimed loanwords in Chinese).[33]
Austronesian
The homeland of theAustronesian languages is widely accepted by linguists to beTaiwan, since nine of its ten branches are found there, with all Austronesian languages found outside Taiwan belonging to the remainingMalayo-Polynesian branch.[34]
Some authorities on the history of theUto-Aztecan language family place theProto-Uto-Aztecan homeland in the border region between the USA and Mexico, namely the upland regions of Arizona and New Mexico and the adjacent areas of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, roughly corresponding to theSonoran Desert. The proto-language would have been spoken by foragers, about 5,000 years ago.Hill (2001) proposes instead a homeland further south, making the assumed speakers of Proto-Uto-Aztecan maize cultivators inMesoamerica, who were gradually pushed north, bringing maize cultivation with them, during the period of roughly 4,500 to 3,000 years ago, the geographic diffusion of speakers corresponding to the breakup of linguistic unity.[42]
Proto-Tupian, the reconstructed common ancestor of theTupian languages of South America, was probably spoken in the region between theGuaporé andAripuanã rivers, around 5,000 years ago.[43]
AsSemitic is the only branch of Afroasiatic found outside Africa, northeast Africa is considered the most likely location of theAfroasiatic homeland. An alternative theory, based on lexical comparisons with Indo-European, proposes a Neolithic expansion from the Middle East.[44][45][46] Proto-Afroasiatic is estimated to have begun to break up in the 8th millennium BCE.[44]Proto-Semitic is thought to have been spoken in theNear East between 4400 and 7400 BCE, withAkkadian representing its earliest known branch.[47]
Niger–Congo
Although the membership and subgrouping of theNiger–Congo remains unsettled, the widely-accepted core of the group includes over 1000 languages spoken from West Africa through most of Southern Africa.[48] The homeland is thought to have been somewhere in thesavanna belt of West Africa, with theBantu expansion through the equatorial rainforests of Central Africa beginning around 3000 BCE.[49]
Mande
Valentin Vydrin concluded that "theMande homeland at the second half of the 4th millennium BC was located in SouthernSahara, somewhere to the North of 16° or even 18° of Northern latitude and between 3° and 12° of Western longitude."[50] That is nowMauritania and/or southernWestern Sahara.[51]
Nilo-Saharan
The validity of theNilo-Saharan family remains controversial. Proponents of the family view the border area betweenChad,Sudan, and theCentral African Republic as a likely candidate for its homeland from around the start of the Holocene.[52]
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^Handel, Zev (May 2008). "What is Sino-Tibetan? Snapshot of a Field and a Language Family in Flux: Sino-Tibetan: a Snapshot".Language and Linguistics Compass.2 (3):422–441.doi:10.1111/j.1749-818X.2008.00061.x.
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