Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis

edited by Peter Bellwood & Colin Renfrew

ISBN 10: 1902937201 / ISBN 13: 9781902937205

Published by McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2003

About this Item

This large hardback book is in very good condition - there is just a hint of edge wear to keep it from seeming very good inside and out. Linguistic diversity is one of the most puzzling and challenging features of humankind. Why are there some six thousand different languages spoken in the world today? Why are some, like Chinese or English, spoken by millions over vast territories, while others are restricted to just a few thousand speakers in a limited area? The farming/language dispersal hypothesis makes the radical and controversial proposal that the present-day distributions of many of the world's languages and language families can be traced back to the early developments and dispersals.

Seller Inventory # 453850

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis
• Publisher: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1902937201
• ISBN 13: 9781902937205
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Linguistic diversity is one of the most puzzling and challenging features of humankind. Why are there some six thousand different languages spoken in the world today? Why are some, like Chinese or English, spoken by millions over vast territories, while others are restricted to just a few thousand speakers in a limited area? The farming/language dispersal hypothesis makes the radical and controversial proposal that the present-day distributions of many of the world's languages and language families can be traced back to the early developments and dispersals of farming from the several nuclear areas where animal and plant domestication emerged. For instance, the Indo-European and Austronesian language families may owe their current vast distributions to the spread of food plants and of farmers (speaking the relevant proto-language) following the Neolithic revolutions which took place in the Near East and in Eastern Asia respectively, thousands of years ago. In this challenging book, international experts in historical linguistics, prehistoric archaeology, molecular genetics and human ecology bring their specialisms to bear upon this intractable problem, using a range of interdisciplinary approaches. There are signs that a new synthesis between these fields may now be emerging. This path-breaking volume opens new perspectives and indicates some of the directions which future research is likely to follow.

About the Author

Colin Renfrew is is Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge University and Director of the McDonald Institute. His many publications include Archaeology: Theories, Methods, Practice (Thames and Hudson 3rd ed 2000) and Archaeogenetics: DNA and the Population Prehistory of Europe (McDonald Institute 2000).Peter Bellwood is Professor of Archaeology at the Australian National University, Canberra. He is an expert on the prehistory of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the origins of agriculture, and related linguistic and biological developments.