Claire Bowern|Patience Epps|Russell D. Gray|Jane H. Hill|Keith Hunley|Patrick McConvell|Jason Zentz
Does Lateral Transmission Obscure Inheritance in Hunter-Gatherer Languages?
Yale University|The University of Texas at Austin|University of Auckland|University of Arizona|University of New Mexico|Australian National University|Yale University
recent years linguists begun increasingly rely quantitative phylogenetic approaches examine language evolution linguists questioned suitability phylogenetic approaches grounds linguistic evolution largely reticulate due extensive lateral transmission borrowing among languages problem may particularly pronounced huntergatherer languages conventional wisdom among many linguists lexical borrowing rates high tree building approaches cannot provide meaningful insights evolutionary processes however claim never systematically evaluated large part suitable data unavailable addition little known subsistence demographic ecological social factors might mediate variation rates borrowing among languages evaluate claims large sample huntergatherer languages three regions around world study list 204 basic vocabulary items collected 122 huntergatherer smallscale cultivator languages three ecologically diverse case study areas northern australia northwest amazonia california great basin words rigorously coded etymological inheritance status loan rates calculated loan rate variability examined respect language area subsistence mode population size density mobility results compared sample 41 primarily agriculturalist languages though loan levels varied within among regions generally low regions mean 506 median 249 sd 756 despite substantial demographic ecological social variation amazonian levels uniformly low language exhibiting 4 rates low variable two study regions part several outlier languages rates borrowing especially high high mobility prestige asymmetries language shift may contribute high rates outliers support found claims huntergatherer languages borrow agriculturalist languages results debunk myth high borrowing huntergatherer languages suggest evolution languages governed type rules operating largescale agriculturalist speech communities results also show local factors likely critical general processes determining high low loan rates