[YG Conlang Archives] > [engelang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
Leonardo scripsit: > Were you people aware of the work below? > http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/04/15/clever-study-uses-genetics-trick-to-trace-language-back-to-its-very-beginning-in-africa It's nonsense, unfortunately: a small founder population may have only a fraction of the genes of its source population, but there's no reason to believe it had only a small fraction of its phonemes. In addition, there were gross methodological problems. Rebuttals and commentary: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3090 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3152 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3742 http://www.languagehat.com/archives/004215.php and the papers they link to. -- John Cowan cowan@hidden.email http://ccil.org/~cowan Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to [Sam], a grey-clad moving hill. Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit's eyes, but the Mumak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him does not walk now in Middle-earth; his kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and his majesty. --"Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit"