Some observations on the transeurasian language family, from the perspective of the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis

Abstract

During my attendance at the ‘Transeurasian Millets and Beans, Words and Genes’ conference in Jena (January 2019), Martine Robbeets invited me to comment on the articles that are published in this Special Collection in the journal Evolutionary Human Sciences. My comments are focused on the seven articles that deal with the ‘Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis’, one of the key theoretical constructs discussed during the conference. I consider how the hypothesis might aid an understanding of the prehistory and early history of the Transeurasian language family.

Keywords

• Archaeolinguistics
• Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis
• Transeurasian language family
• Northeast Asia
• Neolithic