Can Bayesian phylogeography reconstruct migrations and expansions in linguistic evolution?
Bayesian phylogeography has been used in historical linguistics to reconstruct homelands and expansions of language families, but the reliability of these reconstructions has remained unclear. We contribute to this discussion with a simulation study where we distinguish two types of spatial processe...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The Royal Society
2021-01-01
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| Series: | Royal Society Open Science |
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| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.201079 |
| _version_ | 1818577259867406336 |
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| author | Nico Neureiter Peter Ranacher Rik van Gijn Balthasar Bickel Robert Weibel |
| author_facet | Nico Neureiter Peter Ranacher Rik van Gijn Balthasar Bickel Robert Weibel |
| author_sort | Nico Neureiter |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Bayesian phylogeography has been used in historical linguistics to reconstruct homelands and expansions of language families, but the reliability of these reconstructions has remained unclear. We contribute to this discussion with a simulation study where we distinguish two types of spatial processes: migration, where populations or languages leave one place for another, and expansion, where populations or languages gradually expand their territory. We simulate migration and expansion in two scenarios with varying degrees of spatial directional trends and evaluate the performance of state-of-the-art phylogeographic methods. Our results show that these methods fail to reconstruct migrations, but work surprisingly well on expansions, even under severe directional trends. We demonstrate that migrations and expansions have typical phylogenetic and spatial patterns, which in the one case inhibit and in the other facilitate phylogeographic reconstruction. Furthermore, we propose descriptive statistics to identify whether a real sample of languages, their relationship and spatial distribution, better fits a migration or an expansion scenario. Bringing together the results of the simulation study and theoretical arguments, we make recommendations for assessing the adequacy of phylogeographic models to reconstruct the spatial evolution of languages. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-16T06:27:05Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-3d9a793db07e4c4eb5860371495a00f8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2054-5703 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-16T06:27:05Z |
| publishDate | 2021-01-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Royal Society Open Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-3d9a793db07e4c4eb5860371495a00f82022-12-21T22:40:58ZengThe Royal SocietyRoyal Society Open Science2054-57032021-01-018110.1098/rsos.201079201079Can Bayesian phylogeography reconstruct migrations and expansions in linguistic evolution?Nico NeureiterPeter RanacherRik van GijnBalthasar BickelRobert WeibelBayesian phylogeography has been used in historical linguistics to reconstruct homelands and expansions of language families, but the reliability of these reconstructions has remained unclear. We contribute to this discussion with a simulation study where we distinguish two types of spatial processes: migration, where populations or languages leave one place for another, and expansion, where populations or languages gradually expand their territory. We simulate migration and expansion in two scenarios with varying degrees of spatial directional trends and evaluate the performance of state-of-the-art phylogeographic methods. Our results show that these methods fail to reconstruct migrations, but work surprisingly well on expansions, even under severe directional trends. We demonstrate that migrations and expansions have typical phylogenetic and spatial patterns, which in the one case inhibit and in the other facilitate phylogeographic reconstruction. Furthermore, we propose descriptive statistics to identify whether a real sample of languages, their relationship and spatial distribution, better fits a migration or an expansion scenario. Bringing together the results of the simulation study and theoretical arguments, we make recommendations for assessing the adequacy of phylogeographic models to reconstruct the spatial evolution of languages.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.201079phylogeographybayesian phylogeneticslanguage evolution |
| spellingShingle | Nico Neureiter Peter Ranacher Rik van Gijn Balthasar Bickel Robert Weibel Can Bayesian phylogeography reconstruct migrations and expansions in linguistic evolution? Royal Society Open Science phylogeography bayesian phylogenetics language evolution |
| title | Can Bayesian phylogeography reconstruct migrations and expansions in linguistic evolution? |
| title_full | Can Bayesian phylogeography reconstruct migrations and expansions in linguistic evolution? |
| title_fullStr | Can Bayesian phylogeography reconstruct migrations and expansions in linguistic evolution? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Can Bayesian phylogeography reconstruct migrations and expansions in linguistic evolution? |
| title_short | Can Bayesian phylogeography reconstruct migrations and expansions in linguistic evolution? |
| title_sort | can bayesian phylogeography reconstruct migrations and expansions in linguistic evolution |
| topic | phylogeography bayesian phylogenetics language evolution |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.201079 |
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