North American Pre-Columbian Languages

A discussion of word histories and origins.
bnjtokyo

North American Pre-Columbian Languages

Postby bnjtokyo » Thu Mar 13, 2014 1:54 am

The New York Times has an article about a paper suggesting ancestors of people speaking languages in the Na-Dene family were trapped in Beringia for thousands of years.

The NYTimes article is here
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/scien ... ef=science
and the PLOS ONE publication is here
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Ad ... ne.0091722

Of interest is the authors' use of phonological and morphological features to identify relationships instead of lexical cognates.

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Slava
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Re: North American Pre-Columbian Languages

Postby Slava » Thu Mar 13, 2014 11:35 am

Interesting theory. I wonder how it is that no one had thought of comparing language structures instead of just vocabulary.

I learned a new word, too: refugium.
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