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{{short description|Region in which a proto-language was spoken}}
{{short description|Region in which a proto-language was spoken}}
In [[historical linguistics]], the '''homeland''' or '''{{lang|de|Urheimat}}''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ʊər|h|aɪ|m|ɑː|t}} {{respell|OOR|hye|maht}}, from [[German language|German]] {{lang|de|[[:wikt:ur-#German|ur]]-}} 'original' and {{lang|de|[[Heimat]]}} 'home') of a [[proto-language]] is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different [[daughter language]]s. A proto-language is the reconstructed or historically-attested parent language of a group of languages that are [[Genetic relationship (linguistics)|genetically related]].
{{original research|date=July 2015}}
{{Cleanup rewrite|date=July 2018}}
In [[historical linguistics]], the '''homeland''' or '''''Urheimat''''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ʊər|h|aɪ|m|ɑː|t}}, from [[German language|German]] ''[[:wikt:ur-#German|ur]]-'' "original" and ''[[Heimat]]'', home) of a [[proto-language]] is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different [[daughter language|daughter languages]]. A proto-language is the reconstructed or historically-attested parent language of a group of languages that are [[Genetic relationship (linguistics)|genetically related]].


Depending on the age of the language family under consideration, its homeland may be known with near-certainty (in the case of historical or near-historical migrations) or it may be very uncertain (in the case of deep prehistory). Next to internal linguistic evidence, the reconstruction of a prehistoric homeland makes use of a variety of disciplines, including [[archaeology]] and [[archaeogenetics]].
Depending on the age of the language family under consideration, its homeland may be known with near-certainty (in the case of historical or near-historical migrations) or it may be very uncertain (in the case of deep prehistory). Next to internal linguistic evidence, the reconstruction of a prehistoric homeland makes use of a variety of disciplines, including [[archaeology]] and [[archaeogenetics]].
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== Limitations of the concept ==
== Limitations of the concept ==
{{original research|section|date=September 2021}}
{{off topic|Tree model|section|date=March 2022}}
{{see|Language change}}
{{see|Language change}}
The concept of a (single, identifiable) "homeland" of a given language family implies a purely [[Genetic relationship (linguistics)|genealogical]] view of the development of languages. This assumption is often reasonable and useful, but it is by no means a logical necessity, as languages are well known to be susceptible to [[Areal feature|areal change]] such as [[Stratum (linguistics)|substrate or superstrate]] influence.
The concept of a (single, identifiable) "homeland" of a given language family implies a purely [[Genetic relationship (linguistics)|genealogical]] view of the development of languages. This assumption is often reasonable and useful, but it is by no means a logical necessity, as languages are well known to be susceptible to [[Areal feature|areal change]] such as [[Stratum (linguistics)|substrate or superstrate]] influence.
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{{see|Behavioral modernity|Origin of language|Origin of speech|Proto-Human language|Borean languages|Nostratic languages|Dené–Caucasian languages}}
{{see|Behavioral modernity|Origin of language|Origin of speech|Proto-Human language|Borean languages|Nostratic languages|Dené–Caucasian languages}}
Over a sufficient period of time, in the absence of evidence of intermediary steps in the process, it may be impossible to observe linkages between languages that have a shared Urheimat: given enough time, natural language change will obliterate any meaningful linguistic evidence of a common genetic source.
Over a sufficient period of time, in the absence of evidence of intermediary steps in the process, it may be impossible to observe linkages between languages that have a shared Urheimat: given enough time, natural language change will obliterate any meaningful linguistic evidence of a common genetic source.
This general concern is a manifestation of the larger issue of "time depth" in historical linguistics.<ref>{{cite book |title=Time Depth in Historical Linguistics |editor1-first=Colin |editor1-last=Renfrew |editor2-first=April |editor2-last=McMahon |editor3-first=Larry |editor3-last=Trask |year=1999 |isbn=978-1-902937-06-9}}</ref>
This general concern is a manifestation of the larger issue of "time depth" in historical linguistics.<ref>{{cite book |title=Time Depth in Historical Linguistics |editor1-first=Colin |editor1-last=Renfrew |editor2-first=April |editor2-last=McMahon |editor3-first=Larry |editor3-last=Trask |year=1999 |isbn=978-1-902937-06-9}}{{page needed|date=March 2022}}</ref>


For example, the [[languages of the New World]] are believed to be descended from a relatively "rapid" [[Settlement of the Americas|peopling of the Americas]] (relative to the duration of the Upper Paleolithic) within a few millennia (roughly between 20,000 and 15,000 years ago),<ref>{{Citation |last1=O'Rourke |first1=Dennis H. |last2=Raff |first2=Jennifer A. |title=The Human Genetic History of the Americas: The Final Frontier |journal=Current Biology |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=R202–7 |year=2010 |pmid=20178768 |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2009.11.051|s2cid=14479088 }}</ref> but their genetic relationship has become completely obscured over the more than ten millennia which have passed between their separation and their first written record in the early modern period. Similarly, the [[Australian Aboriginal languages]] are divided into some 28 families and isolates for which no genetic relationship can be shown.<ref>Bowern, Claire; Atkinson, Quentin (2012). "Computational Phylogenetics and the Internal Structure of Pama-Nyungan". Language. 84 (4): 817–845. {{Citation |last1=Kayser |first1=Manfred |title=The Human Genetic History of Oceania: Near and Remote Views of Dispersal |journal=Current Biology |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=R194–201 |year=2010 |pmid=20178767 |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2009.12.004|s2cid=7282462 }}</ref>
For example, the [[languages of the New World]] are believed to be descended from a relatively "rapid" [[Settlement of the Americas|peopling of the Americas]] (relative to the duration of the Upper Paleolithic) within a few millennia (roughly between 20,000 and 15,000 years ago),<ref>{{Citation |last1=O'Rourke |first1=Dennis H. |last2=Raff |first2=Jennifer A. |title=The Human Genetic History of the Americas: The Final Frontier |journal=Current Biology |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=R202–7 |year=2010 |pmid=20178768 |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2009.11.051|s2cid=14479088 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2010CBio...20.R202O }}</ref> but their genetic relationship has become completely obscured over the more than ten millennia which have passed between their separation and their first written record in the early modern period. Similarly, the [[Australian Aboriginal languages]] are divided into some 28 families and isolates for which no genetic relationship can be shown.<ref>Bowern, Claire; Atkinson, Quentin (2012). "Computational Phylogenetics and the Internal Structure of Pama-Nyungan". Language. 84 (4): 817–845. {{Citation |last1=Kayser |first1=Manfred |title=The Human Genetic History of Oceania: Near and Remote Views of Dispersal |journal=Current Biology |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=R194–201 |year=2010 |pmid=20178767 |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2009.12.004|s2cid=7282462 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2010CBio...20.R194K }}</ref>


The ''Urheimaten'' reconstructed using the methods of [[comparative linguistics]] typically estimate separation times dating to the [[Neolithic]] or later. It is undisputed that fully developed languages were present throughout the [[Upper Paleolithic]], and possibly into the deep [[Middle Paleolithic]] (see [[origin of language]], [[behavioral modernity]]). These languages would have spread with the [[early human migrations]] of the first "peopling of the world", but they are no longer amenable to linguistic reconstruction. The [[Last Glacial Maximum]] (LGM) has imposed linguistic separation lasting several millennia on many Upper Paleolithic populations in Eurasia, as they were forced to retreat into "[[Last Glacial Maximum refugia|refugia]]" before the advancing ice sheets. After the end of the LGM, [[Mesolithic]] populations of the [[Holocene]] again became more mobile, and most of the prehistoric spread of the world's major linguistic families seem to reflect the expansion of population cores during the Mesolithic followed by the [[Neolithic Revolution]].
The ''Urheimaten'' reconstructed using the methods of [[comparative linguistics]] typically estimate separation times dating to the [[Neolithic]] or later. It is undisputed that fully developed languages were present throughout the [[Upper Paleolithic]], and possibly into the deep [[Middle Paleolithic]] (see [[origin of language]], [[behavioral modernity]]). These languages would have spread with the [[early human migrations]] of the first "peopling of the world", but they are no longer amenable to linguistic reconstruction. The [[Last Glacial Maximum]] (LGM) has imposed linguistic separation lasting several millennia on many Upper Paleolithic populations in Eurasia, as they were forced to retreat into "[[Last Glacial Maximum refugia|refugia]]" before the advancing ice sheets. After the end of the LGM, [[Mesolithic]] populations of the [[Holocene]] again became more mobile, and most of the prehistoric spread of the world's major linguistic families seem to reflect the expansion of population cores during the Mesolithic followed by the [[Neolithic Revolution]].


The [[Nostratic languages|Nostratic]] theory is the best-known attempt to expand the deep prehistory of the main language families of Eurasia (excepting Sino-Tibetan and the languages of Southeast Asia) to the beginning of the [[Holocene]]. First proposed in the early 20th century, the Nostratic theory still receives serious consideration, but it is by no means generally accepted. The more recent and more speculative "[[Borean languages|"Borean" hypothesis]] attempts to unite Nostratic with [[Dené–Caucasian]] and [[Austric languages|Austric]], in a "mega-phylum" that would unite most languages of Eurasia, with a time depth going back to the Last Glacial Maximum.
The [[Nostratic languages|Nostratic]] theory is the best-known attempt to expand the deep prehistory of the main language families of Eurasia (excepting Sino-Tibetan and the languages of Southeast Asia) to the beginning of the [[Holocene]]. First proposed in the early 20th century, the Nostratic theory still receives serious consideration, but it is by no means generally accepted. The more recent and more speculative [[Borean languages|"Borean" hypothesis]] attempts to unite Nostratic with [[Dené–Caucasian]] and [[Austric languages|Austric]], in a "mega-phylum" that would unite most languages of Eurasia, with a time depth going back to the Last Glacial Maximum.


The argument surrounding the "[[Proto-Human language]]", finally, is almost completely detached from linguistic reconstruction, instead surrounding questions of phonology and the [[origin of speech]]. Time depths involved in the deep prehistory of all the world's extant languages are of the order of at least 100,000 years.<ref>Bengtson and Ruhlen (1994) offered a list of 27 "global etymologies". Bengtson, John D. and [[Merritt Ruhlen]]. 1994. [http://www.merrittruhlen.com/files/Global.pdf "Global etymologies"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928162047/http://www.merrittruhlen.com/files/Global.pdf |date=2007-09-28 }}. In Ruhlen 1994a, pp.&nbsp;277–336. This approach has been criticized as flawed by Campbell and Poser (2008) who used the same criteria employed by Bengtson and Ruhlen to identify "cognates" in Spanish known to be false. Campbell, Lyle, and William J. Poser. 2008. ''Language Classification: History and Method''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 370–372.</ref>
The argument surrounding the "[[Proto-Human language]]", finally, is almost completely detached from linguistic reconstruction, instead surrounding questions of phonology and the [[origin of speech]]. Time depths involved in the deep prehistory of all the world's extant languages are of the order of at least 100,000 years.<ref>Bengtson and Ruhlen (1994) offered a list of 27 "global etymologies". Bengtson, John D. and [[Merritt Ruhlen]]. 1994. [http://www.merrittruhlen.com/files/Global.pdf "Global etymologies"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928162047/http://www.merrittruhlen.com/files/Global.pdf |date=2007-09-28 }}. In Ruhlen 1994a, pp.&nbsp;277–336. This approach has been criticized as flawed by Campbell and Poser (2008) who used the same criteria employed by Bengtson and Ruhlen to identify "cognates" in Spanish known to be false. Campbell, Lyle, and William J. Poser. 2008. ''Language Classification: History and Method''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 370–372.</ref>
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The concept of an ''Urheimat'' only applies to populations speaking a proto-language defined by the [[tree model]]. This is not always the case.
The concept of an ''Urheimat'' only applies to populations speaking a proto-language defined by the [[tree model]]. This is not always the case.


For example, in places where language families meet, the relationship between a group that speaks a language and the Urheimat for that language is complicated by "processes of migration, language shift and group absorption are documented by linguists and ethnographers" in groups that are themselves "transient and plastic." Thus, in the contact area in western Ethiopia between languages belonging to the Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic families, the Nilo-Saharan-speaking [[Nyangatom people|Nyangatom]] and the Afroasiatic-speaking [[Daasanach people|Daasanach]] have been observed to be closely related to each other but genetically distinct from neighboring Afroasiatic-speaking populations. This is a reflection of the fact that the Daasanach, like the Nyangatom, originally spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, with the ancestral Daasanach later [[language shift|adopting]] an Afroasiatic language around the 19th century.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Poloni | first1 = ES | last2 = Naciri | first2 = Y | last3 = Bucho | first3 = R | last4 = Niba | first4 = R | last5 = Kervaire | first5 = B | last6 = Excoffier | first6 = L | last7 = Langaney | first7 = A | last8 = Sanchez-Mazas | first8 = A. |date=Nov 2009 | title = Genetic evidence for complexity in ethnic differentiation and history in East Africa | url = https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:2714/ATTACHMENT01| journal = Ann Hum Genet | volume = 73 | issue = 6| pages = 582–600 | doi=10.1111/j.1469-1809.2009.00541.x | pmid=19706029| s2cid = 2488794 }}</ref>
For example, in places where language families meet, the relationship between a group that speaks a language and the Urheimat for that language is complicated by "processes of migration, language shift and group absorption are documented by linguists and ethnographers" in groups that are themselves "transient and plastic." Thus, in the contact area in western Ethiopia between languages belonging to the Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic families, the Nilo-Saharan-speaking [[Nyangatom people|Nyangatom]] and the Afroasiatic-speaking [[Daasanach people|Daasanach]] have been observed to be closely related to each other but genetically distinct from neighboring Afroasiatic-speaking populations. This is a reflection of the fact that the Daasanach, like the Nyangatom, originally spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, with the ancestral Daasanach later [[language shift|adopting]] an Afroasiatic language around the 19th century.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Poloni |first1=Estella S. |last2=Naciri |first2=Yamama |last3=Bucho |first3=Rute |last4=Niba |first4=Régine |last5=Kervaire |first5=Barbara |last6=Excoffier |first6=Laurent |last7=Langaney |first7=André |last8=Sanchez-Mazas |first8=Alicia |title=Genetic Evidence for Complexity in Ethnic Differentiation and History in East Africa |journal=Annals of Human Genetics |date=November 2009 |volume=73 |issue=6 |pages=582–600 |doi=10.1111/j.1469-1809.2009.00541.x |pmid=19706029 |s2cid=2488794 |url=https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:2714 }}</ref>


[[Creole language]]s are hybrids of languages that are sometimes unrelated. Similarities arise from the creole formation process, rather than from genetic descent.<ref>{{Citation |last1=McWhorter |first1=J. H. |title=Identifying the Creole Prototype: Vindicating a Typological Class |journal=Language |volume=74 |issue=4 |pages=788–818 |year=1998 |doi=10.2307/417003|jstor=417003 }}</ref> For example, a creole language may lack significant inflectional morphology, lack tone on monosyllabic words, or lack semantically opaque word formation, even if these features are found in all of the parent languages of the languages from which the creole was formed.<ref>{{citation | last=McWhorter | first=John H. | year=1999 | contribution=The Afrogenesis Hypothesis of Plantation Creole Origin | editor1-last=Huber | editor1-first=Magnus | editor2-last=Parkvall | editor2-first=Mikael | title=Spreading the Word: The Issue of Diffusion among the Atlantic Creoles | location=London | publisher=Westminster University Press | pages=111–152}}</ref>
[[Creole language]]s are hybrids of languages that are sometimes unrelated. Similarities arise from the creole formation process, rather than from genetic descent.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=McWhorter |first1=John H. |title=Identifying the Creole Prototype: Vindicating a Typological Class |journal=Language |date=December 1998 |volume=74 |issue=4 |pages=788–818 |doi=10.2307/417003 |jstor=417003 }}</ref> For example, a creole language may lack significant inflectional morphology, lack tone on monosyllabic words, or lack semantically opaque word formation, even if these features are found in all of the parent languages of the languages from which the creole was formed.<ref>{{citation | last=McWhorter | first=John H. | year=1999 | contribution=The Afrogenesis Hypothesis of Plantation Creole Origin | editor1-last=Huber | editor1-first=Magnus | editor2-last=Parkvall | editor2-first=Mikael | title=Spreading the Word: The Issue of Diffusion among the Atlantic Creoles | location=London | publisher=Westminster University Press | pages=111–152}}</ref>


=== Isolates ===
=== Isolates ===
Some languages are [[language isolates]]. That is to say, they have no well accepted language family connection, no nodes in a family tree, and therefore no known ''Urheimat''. An example is the [[Basque language]] of Northern Spain and south west France. Nevertheless, it is a scientific fact that all languages evolve. An unknown ''Urheimat'' may still be hypothesized, such as that for a [[Proto-Basque]], and may be supported by archaeological and historical evidence.
Some languages are [[language isolates]]. That is to say, they have no well accepted language family connection, no nodes in a family tree, and therefore no known ''Urheimat''. An example is the [[Basque language]] of Northern Spain and southwest France. Nevertheless, it is a scientific fact that all languages evolve. An unknown ''Urheimat'' may still be hypothesized, such as that for a [[Proto-Basque]], and may be supported by archaeological and historical evidence.


Sometimes relatives are found for a language originally believed to be an isolate. An example is the [[Etruscan language]], which, even though only partially understood, is believed to be related to the [[Rhaetic language]] and to the [[Lemnian language]]. A single family may be an isolate. In the case of the non-Austronesian indigenous languages of Papua New Guinea and the indigenous languages of Australia, there is no published linguistic hypothesis supported by any evidence that these languages have links to any other families. Nevertheless, an unknown Urheimat is implied. The entire Indo-European family itself is a language isolate: no further connections are known. This lack of information does not prevent some professional linguists from formulating additional hypothetical nodes ([[Nostratic]]) and additional homelands for the speakers.
Sometimes relatives are found for a language originally believed to be an isolate. An example is the [[Etruscan language]], which, even though only partially understood, is believed to be related to the [[Rhaetic language]] and to the [[Lemnian language]]. A single family may be an isolate. In the case of the non-Austronesian indigenous languages of Papua New Guinea and the indigenous languages of Australia, there is no published linguistic hypothesis supported by any evidence that these languages have links to any other families. Nevertheless, an unknown Urheimat is implied. The entire Indo-European family itself is a language isolate: no further connections are known. This lack of information does not prevent some professional linguists from formulating additional hypothetical nodes ([[Nostratic]]) and additional homelands for the speakers.
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===Western Eurasia===
===Western and central Eurasia===
:[[File:Indo-European steppe homeland map.svg|thumb|right|Map showing the present-day distribution of Indo-European languages in Eurasia (light green) and the likely Proto-Indo-European homeland (dark green).]]
[[File:Indo-European steppe homeland map.svg|thumb|right|Map showing the present-day distribution of Indo-European languages in Eurasia (light green) and the likely Proto-Indo-European homeland (dark green)]]
====Indo-European====
;Indo-European
:The identification of the [[Proto-Indo-European homeland]] has been debated for centuries, but the [[steppe hypothesis]] is now widely accepted, placing it in the [[Pontic-Caspian steppe]] around 4000 BCE.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Anthony |first1=David W. |last2=Ringe |first2=Don |author-link1=David W. Anthony |author-link2=Donald Ringe |title=The Indo-European Homeland from Linguistic and Archaeological Perspectives |journal=Annual Review of Linguistics |date=1 January 2015 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=199–219 |doi=10.1146/annurev-linguist-030514-124812 |url=https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-linguist-030514-124812 |issn=2333-9683}}</ref>
:The identification of the [[Proto-Indo-European homeland]] has been debated for centuries, but the [[steppe hypothesis]] is now widely accepted, placing it in the [[Pontic–Caspian steppe]] in the late 5th millennium BCE.{{sfn|Anthony|Ringe|2015||pp=208–209}} The leading alternative is the [[Anatolian hypothesis]], proposing a homeland in [[Anatolia]] in the early 7th millennium BCE.{{sfn|Anthony|Ringe|2015|p=202}}
====[[Languages of the Caucasus|Caucasian]]====
;[[Languages of the Caucasus|Caucasian]]
:The unrelated [[Kartvelian languages|Kartvelian]], [[Northwest Caucasian languages|Northwest Caucasian]] (Abkhaz-Adygean) and [[Northeast Caucasian languages|Northeast Caucasian]] (Nakh-Daghestanian) language families are presumed to be indigenous to the [[Caucasus]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Amiridze |first1=Nino |title=Languages of the Caucasus and contact-induced language change |journal=STUF - Language Typology and Universals |date=27 May 2019 |volume=72 |issue=2 |pages=185–192 |doi=10.1515/stuf-2019-0007 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/stuf/72/2/article-p185.xml?language=en |language=en |issn=1867-8319|doi-access=free }}</ref> There is extensive evidence for contact between the Caucasian languages, especially [[Proto-Kartvelian]], and [[Proto-Indo-European]], indicating that they were spoken in close proximity at least three to four thousand years ago.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Anthony |first1=David W. |last2=Ringe |first2=Don |title=The Indo-European Homeland from Linguistic and Archaeological Perspectives |journal=Annual Review of Linguistics |date=1 January 2015 |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=199–219|doi=10.1146/annurev-linguist-030514-124812 |url=https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-linguist-030514-124812 |issn=2333-9683}} p. 207.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rayfield |first1=Donald |title=Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia |date=2019 |publisher=Reaktion Books |location=London |isbn=9781789140590 |pages=11–12 |chapter=The Emergence of the Kartvelians |chapter-url=http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/pdfs/edge-of-empires-extract-web.pdf}}</ref>
:The unrelated [[Kartvelian languages|Kartvelian]], [[Northwest Caucasian languages|Northwest Caucasian]] (Abkhaz-Adygean) and [[Northeast Caucasian languages|Northeast Caucasian]] (Nakh-Daghestanian) language families are presumed to be indigenous to the [[Caucasus]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Amiridze |first1=Nino |title=Languages of the Caucasus and contact-induced language change |journal=STUF Language Typology and Universals |date=27 May 2019 |volume=72 |issue=2 |pages=185–192 |doi=10.1515/stuf-2019-0007 |doi-access=free }}</ref> There is extensive evidence for contact between the Caucasian languages, especially [[Proto-Kartvelian]], and [[Proto-Indo-European]], indicating that they were spoken in close proximity at least three to four thousand years ago.{{sfn|Anthony|Ringe|2015|p=207}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rayfield |first1=Donald |title=Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia |date=2019 |publisher=Reaktion Books |location=London |isbn=9781789140590 |pages=11–12 |chapter=The Emergence of the Kartvelians |chapter-url=http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/pdfs/edge-of-empires-extract-web.pdf }}{{Dead link|date=March 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
===={{visible anchor|Dravidian}}====
;{{visible anchor|Dravidian}}
:Although [[Dravidian languages]] are now concentrated in southern India, with isolated pockets further north, placenames and [[stratum (linguistics)|substrate]] influences on [[Indo-Aryan languages]] indicate that they was once spoken more widely across the subcontinent. Reconstructed Proto-Dravidian terms for flora and fauna support the idea that Dravidian is indigenous to India. Proponents of a migration from the northwest cite the location of [[Brahui language|Brahui]], a hypothesized connection to the undeciphered [[Indus Valley Script]], and claims of a link to [[Elamite language|Elamite]].<ref>{{cite book
:Although [[Dravidian languages]] are now concentrated in southern India, isolated pockets further north, placenames and [[stratum (linguistics)|substrate]] influences on [[Indo-Aryan languages]] indicate that they were once spoken more widely across the [[Indian subcontinent]].{{sfnp|Krishnamurti|2003|pp=5–6}} Reconstructed [[Proto-Dravidian language|Proto-Dravidian]] terms for flora and fauna support the idea that Dravidian is indigenous to India.{{sfnp|Krishnamurti|2003|p=15}} Proponents of a migration from the northwest cite the location of [[Brahui language|Brahui]], a hypothesized connection to the undeciphered [[Indus script]], and claims of [[Elamo-Dravidian languages|a link]] to [[Elamite language|Elamite]].{{sfnp|Krishnamurti|2003|pp=3, 5}}
;Turkic
| surname = Krishnamurti | given = Bhadriraju
:[[Turkic languages]] are today spoken across an area stretching from northwest China to the edge of Europe, but [[Proto-Turkic]] lexical items about the climate, topography, flora, fauna and subsistence point to a homeland in the taiga-steppe zone of southern Siberia and Mongolia around the [[Altai-Sayan region]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Golden |first1=Peter B. |chapter=Ethnogenesis in the tribal zone: The Shaping of the Turks |pages=17–63 |title=Studies on the Peoples and Cultures of the Eurasian Steppes |date=2011 |publisher=Editura Academiei Române |isbn=978-973-27-2152-0 }} pp. 35–37.</ref> Early contact with [[Mongolic languages]] also points to this area.<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Ethnicity and language in prehistoric Northeast Asia |last=Janhunen |first=Juha |pages=195–208 |title=Archaeology and Language II: Archaeological Data and Linguistic Hypotheses |editor1-last=Blench |editor1-first=Roger |editor2-last=Spriggs |editor2-first=Matthew |year=2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-11761-5 }} p. 203.</ref> Genetic studies suggest that most of the expansion of the language family was due to language replacement rather than migration, but have identified shared elements originating from the South Siberia-Mongolia area.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Yunusbayev |first1=Bayazit |last2=Metspalu |first2=Mait |last3=Metspalu |first3=Ene |last4=Valeev |first4=Albert |last5=Litvinov |first5=Sergei |last6=Valiev |first6=Ruslan |last7=Akhmetova |first7=Vita |last8=Balanovska |first8=Elena |last9=Balanovsky |first9=Oleg |last10=Turdikulova |first10=Shahlo |last11=Dalimova |first11=Dilbar |last12=Nymadawa |first12=Pagbajabyn |last13=Bahmanimehr |first13=Ardeshir |last14=Sahakyan |first14=Hovhannes |last15=Tambets |first15=Kristiina |last16=Fedorova |first16=Sardana |last17=Barashkov |first17=Nikolay |last18=Khidiyatova |first18=Irina |last19=Mihailov |first19=Evelin |last20=Khusainova |first20=Rita |last21=Damba |first21=Larisa |last22=Derenko |first22=Miroslava |last23=Malyarchuk |first23=Boris |last24=Osipova |first24=Ludmila |last25=Voevoda |first25=Mikhail |last26=Yepiskoposyan |first26=Levon |last27=Kivisild |first27=Toomas |last28=Khusnutdinova |first28=Elza |last29=Villems |first29=Richard |title=The Genetic Legacy of the Expansion of Turkic-Speaking Nomads across Eurasia |journal=PLOS Genetics |date=21 April 2015 |volume=11 |issue=4 |pages=e1005068 |doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1005068 |pmid=25898006 |pmc=4405460 |doi-access=free }}</ref>
| author-link = Bhadriraju Krishnamurti
;Uralic
| title = The Dravidian Languages
:Inherited tree names seem to indicate a [[Proto-Uralic homeland hypotheses|Uralic homeland]] to the east of the [[Ural Mountains]]. The internal branching of the family suggests an area between the [[Ob River]] and [[Yenisey River]].<ref>{{cite book |given=Juha |surname=Janhunen |chapter=Proto-Uralic — what, where, and when? |pages=57–78 |chapter-url=https://www.sgr.fi/sust/sust258/sust258_janhunen.pdf |title=The Quasquicentennial of the Finno-Ugrian Society |editor-given=Jussi |editor-surname=Ylikoski |publisher=Finno-Ugrian Society |location=Helsinki |series=Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia |volume=258 |year=2009 |isbn=978-952-5667-11-0 |url=https://www.sgr.fi/fi/items/show/93 }} p. 71.</ref> Uralic speakers are not genetically distinguished from their neighbours, but do share a genetic component that is of Siberian origin.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tambets |first1=Kristiina |last2=Yunusbayev |first2=Bayazit |last3=Hudjashov |first3=Georgi |last4=Ilumäe |first4=Anne-Mai |last5=Rootsi |first5=Siiri |last6=Honkola |first6=Terhi |last7=Vesakoski |first7=Outi |last8=Atkinson |first8=Quentin |last9=Skoglund |first9=Pontus |last10=Kushniarevich |first10=Alena |last11=Litvinov |first11=Sergey |last12=Reidla |first12=Maere |last13=Metspalu |first13=Ene |last14=Saag |first14=Lehti |last15=Rantanen |first15=Timo |last16=Karmin |first16=Monika |last17=Parik |first17=Jüri |last18=Zhadanov |first18=Sergey I. |last19=Gubina |first19=Marina |last20=Damba |first20=Larisa D. |last21=Bermisheva |first21=Marina |last22=Reisberg |first22=Tuuli |last23=Dibirova |first23=Khadizhat |last24=Evseeva |first24=Irina |last25=Nelis |first25=Mari |last26=Klovins |first26=Janis |last27=Metspalu |first27=Andres |last28=Esko |first28=Tõnu |last29=Balanovsky |first29=Oleg |last30=Balanovska |first30=Elena |last31=Khusnutdinova |first31=Elza K. |last32=Osipova |first32=Ludmila P. |last33=Voevoda |first33=Mikhail |last34=Villems |first34=Richard |last35=Kivisild |first35=Toomas |last36=Metspalu |first36=Mait |title=Genes reveal traces of common recent demographic history for most of the Uralic-speaking populations |journal=Genome Biology |date=December 2018 |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=139 |doi=10.1186/s13059-018-1522-1 |pmid=30241495 |pmc=6151024 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Saag |first1=Lehti |last2=Laneman |first2=Margot |last3=Varul |first3=Liivi |last4=Malve |first4=Martin |last5=Valk |first5=Heiki |last6=Razzak |first6=Maria A. |last7=Shirobokov |first7=Ivan G. |last8=Khartanovich |first8=Valeri I. |last9=Mikhaylova |first9=Elena R. |last10=Kushniarevich |first10=Alena |last11=Scheib |first11=Christiana Lyn |last12=Solnik |first12=Anu |last13=Reisberg |first13=Tuuli |last14=Parik |first14=Jüri |last15=Saag |first15=Lauri |last16=Metspalu |first16=Ene |last17=Rootsi |first17=Siiri |last18=Montinaro |first18=Francesco |last19=Remm |first19=Maido |last20=Mägi |first20=Reedik |last21=D'Atanasio |first21=Eugenia |last22=Crema |first22=Enrico Ryunosuke |last23=Díez-del-Molino |first23=David |last24=Thomas |first24=Mark G. |last25=Kriiska |first25=Aivar |last26=Kivisild |first26=Toomas |last27=Villems |first27=Richard |last28=Lang |first28=Valter |last29=Metspalu |first29=Mait |last30=Tambets |first30=Kristiina |title=The Arrival of Siberian Ancestry Connecting the Eastern Baltic to Uralic Speakers further East |journal=Current Biology |date=May 2019 |volume=29 |issue=10 |pages=1701–1711.e16 |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2019.04.026 |pmid=31080083 |pmc=6544527 |bibcode=2019CBio...29E1701S }}</ref>
| publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 2003
| isbn = 0-521-77111-0
| pages = 3, 5–6, 15–16
}}</ref>


=== Eastern Asia ===
=== Eastern Eurasia ===
====Japonic====
;Japonic
:Most scholars believe that [[Japonic]] was brought to northern [[Kyushu]] from the [[Korean peninsula]] around 700 to 300 BCE by wet-rice farmers of the [[Yayoi culture]], spreading from there throughout the [[Japanese archipelago]] and somewhat later to the [[Ryukyu Islands]].<ref>{{cite book | surname = Serafim | given = Leon A. | chapter = The uses of Ryukyuan in understanding Japanese language history | pages = 79–99 | editor1-given = Bjarne | editor1-surname = Frellesvig | editor2-given = John | editor2-surname = Whitman | title = Proto-Japanese: Issues and Prospects | publisher = John Benjamins | year = 2008 | isbn = 978-90-272-4809-1}} p. 98.</ref><ref>{{cite book | surname = Vovin | given = Alexander | author-link = Alexander Vovin | chapter = Origins of the Japanese Language | doi = 10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.277 | doi-access = free | title = Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2017 | isbn = 978-0-19-938465-5}}</ref> There is fragmentary placename evidence that now-extinct Japonic languages were still spoken in central and southern parts of the Korean peninsula several centuries later.{{sfnp|Sohn|1999|pp=35–36}}
:Most scholars believe that [[Japonic]] was brought to northern [[Kyushu]] from the [[Korea|Korean Peninsula]] around 700 to 300 BCE by wet-rice farmers of the [[Yayoi culture]], spreading from there throughout the [[Japanese Archipelago]] and somewhat later to the [[Ryukyu Islands]].<ref>{{cite book | surname = Serafim | given = Leon A. | author-link = Leon Serafim | chapter = The uses of Ryukyuan in understanding Japanese language history | pages = 79–99 | editor1-given = Bjarke | editor1-surname = Frellesvig | editor2-given = John | editor2-surname = Whitman | title = Proto-Japanese: Issues and Prospects | publisher = John Benjamins | year = 2008 | isbn = 978-90-272-4809-1}} p. 98.</ref><ref>{{cite book | surname = Vovin | given = Alexander | author-link = Alexander Vovin | chapter = Origins of the Japanese Language | doi = 10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.277 | doi-access = free | title = Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2017 | isbn = 978-0-19-938465-5}}</ref> There is fragmentary placename evidence that [[Peninsular Japonic|now-extinct Japonic languages]] were still spoken in central and southern parts of the Korean peninsula several centuries later.{{sfnp|Sohn|1999|pp=35–36}}
====Koreanic====
;Koreanic
:All modern [[Koreanic]] varieties are descended from the language of [[Unified Silla]], which ruled the southern two-thirds of the Korean peninsula between the 7th and 10th centuries.{{sfnp|Sohn|1999|p=40}}<ref>{{cite book | surname1 = Lee | given1 = Ki-Moon | surname2 = Ramsey | given2 = S. Robert | title = A History of the Korean Language | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 2011 | isbn = 978-1-139-49448-9 | page = 4}}</ref> Evidence for the earlier linguistic history of the peninsula is extremely sparse.<ref>{{cite book | surname1 = Lee | given1 = Iksop | surname2 = Ramsey | given2 = S. Robert | title = The Korean Language | publisher = SUNY Press | year = 2000 | isbn = 978-0-7914-4831-1 | page = 31}}</ref> The orthodox view among Korean social historians is that the Korean people migrated to the peninsula from the north, but no archaeological evidence of such a migration has been found.<ref>{{cite book | surname = Yi | given = Seonbok | chapter = Korea: archaeology | pages = 586–597 | title = The Global Prehistory of Human Migration | editor-given = Peter | editor-surname = Bellwood | publisher = Wiley | year = 2014 | isbn = 978-1-118-97059-1}} pp. 586–587.</ref><ref>{{cite book | surname = Nelson | given = Sara M. | chapter = The Politics of Ethnicity in Prehistoric Korea | pages = 218–231 | title = Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology | editor1-given = Philip L. | editor1-surname = Kohl | editor2-given = Clare | editor2-surname = Fawcett | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 1995 | isbn = 978-0-521-55839-6 | url = https://archive.org/details/NationalismPoliticsAndThePracticeOfArchaeologyarchabook}} p. 230.</ref>
:All modern [[Koreanic]] varieties are descended from the language of [[Unified Silla]], which ruled the southern two-thirds of the Korean peninsula between the 7th and 10th centuries.{{sfnp|Sohn|1999|p=40}}<ref>{{cite book | surname1 = Lee | given1 = Ki-Moon | surname2 = Ramsey | given2 = S. Robert | title = A History of the Korean Language | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 2011 | isbn = 978-1-139-49448-9 | page = 4}}</ref> Evidence for the earlier linguistic history of the peninsula is extremely sparse.<ref>{{cite book | surname1 = Lee | given1 = Iksop | surname2 = Ramsey | given2 = S. Robert | title = The Korean Language | publisher = SUNY Press | year = 2000 | isbn = 978-0-7914-4831-1 | page = 31}}</ref> The orthodox view among Korean social historians is that the Korean people migrated to the peninsula from the north, but no archaeological evidence of such a migration has been found.<ref>{{cite book | surname = Yi | given = Seonbok | chapter = Korea: archaeology | pages = 586–597 | title = The Global Prehistory of Human Migration | editor-given = Peter | editor-surname = Bellwood | publisher = Wiley | year = 2014 | isbn = 978-1-118-97059-1}} pp. 586–587.</ref><ref>{{cite book | surname = Nelson | given = Sara M. | author-link = Sarah Milledge Nelson | chapter = The Politics of Ethnicity in Prehistoric Korea | pages = 218–231 | title = Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology | editor1-given = Philip L. | editor1-surname = Kohl | editor2-given = Clare | editor2-surname = Fawcett | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 1995 | isbn = 978-0-521-55839-6 | url = https://archive.org/details/NationalismPoliticsAndThePracticeOfArchaeologyarchabook}} p. 230.</ref>
====Sino-Tibetan====
;Sino-Tibetan
:The reconstruction of [[Sino-Tibetan]] is much less developed than for other major families, so its higher-level structure and time depth remain unclear.<ref>{{cite journal | given = Zev | surname = Handel | title = What is Sino-Tibetan? Snapshot of a Field and a Language Family in Flux | journal = Language and Linguistics Compass | volume = 2 | issue = 3 | year = 2008 | pages = 422–441 | doi = 10.1111/j.1749-818X.2008.00061.x | url = https://www.academia.edu/2347515}} pp. 422–423, 426.</ref> Proposed homelands and periods include: the upper and middle reaches of the [[Yellow River]] about 4–8 kya, associated with the hypothesis of a top-level branching between Chinese and the rest; southwestern [[Sichuan]] around 9 kya, associated with the hypothesis that Chinese and Tibetan form a subbranch; Northeast India (the area of maximal diversity) 9–10 kya.<ref>{{cite journal | surname1 = Zhang | given1 = Menghan | surname2 = Yan | given2 = Shi | surname3 = Pan | given3 = Wuyun | author3-link = Pan Wuyun | surname4 = Jin | given4 = Li | title = Phylogenetic evidence for Sino-Tibetan origin in northern China in the Late Neolithic | journal = Nature | volume = 569 | year = 2019 | issue = 7754 | pages = 112–115 | doi = 10.1038/s41586-019-1153-z | pmid = 31019300 | s2cid = 129946000}} p. 112.</ref>
:The reconstruction of [[Sino-Tibetan]] is much less developed than for other major families, so its higher-level structure and time depth remain unclear.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Handel |first1=Zev |title=What is Sino-Tibetan? Snapshot of a Field and a Language Family in Flux: Sino-Tibetan: a Snapshot |journal=Language and Linguistics Compass |date=May 2008 |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=422–441 |doi=10.1111/j.1749-818X.2008.00061.x }}</ref> Proposed homelands and periods include: the upper and middle reaches of the [[Yellow River]] about 4–8 kya, associated with the hypothesis of a top-level branching between Chinese and the rest (most likely); southwestern [[Sichuan]] around 9 kya, associated with the hypothesis that Chinese and Tibetan form a subbranch; [[Northeast India]] (the area of maximal diversity) 9–10 kya.<ref>{{cite journal | surname1 = Zhang | given1 = Menghan | surname2 = Yan | given2 = Shi | surname3 = Pan | given3 = Wuyun | author3-link = Pan Wuyun | surname4 = Jin | given4 = Li | title = Phylogenetic evidence for Sino-Tibetan origin in northern China in the Late Neolithic | journal = Nature | volume = 569 | year = 2019 | issue = 7754 | pages = 112–115 | doi = 10.1038/s41586-019-1153-z | pmid = 31019300 | bibcode = 2019Natur.569..112Z | s2cid = 129946000}} p. 112.</ref>
====Hmong–Mien====
;Hmong–Mien
:The most likely homeland of the [[Hmong–Mien languages]] is in [[Southern China]] between the [[Yangtze River|Yangtze]] and [[Mekong River|Mekong]] rivers, but speakers of these languages may have migrated from [[Central China]] as a result of the expansion of the [[Han Chinese]].<ref>Roger Blench, "Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology?," Paper for the Symposium "Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence". Geneva June 10–13, 2004. Université de Genève.</ref>
:The most likely homeland of the [[Hmong–Mien languages]] is in [[Southern China]] between the [[Yangtze River|Yangtze]] and [[Mekong River|Mekong]] rivers, but speakers of these languages may have migrated from [[Central China]] as a result of the expansion of the [[Han Chinese]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Blench |first1=Roger |editor1-first=Alicia |editor1-last=Sanchez-Mazas |editor2-first=Roger |editor2-last=Blench |editor3-first=Malcolm D |editor3-last=Ross |editor4-first=Ilia |editor4-last=Peiros |editor5-first=Marie |editor5-last=Lin |title=Past Human Migrations in East Asia |date=2008 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-203-92678-9 |chapter-url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203926789-18/stratification-peopling-china-far-linguistic-evidence-match-genetics-archaeology-roger-blench |chapter=Stratification in the peopling of China: How far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? |doi=10.4324/9780203926789 }}</ref>
====Kra–Dai====
;Kra–Dai
:Most scholars locate the homeland of the [[Kra–Dai languages]] in Southern China, possibly coastal [[Fujian]] or [[Guangdong]].<ref>Ostapirat, Weera. (2005). "Kra–Dai and Austronesian: Notes on phonological correspondences and vocabulary distribution", pp.&nbsp;107–131 in Sagart, Laurent, Blench, Roger & Sanchez-Mazas, Alicia (eds.), ''The Peopling of East Asia: Putting Together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics.'' London/New York: Routledge-Curzon.</ref>
:Most scholars locate the homeland of the [[Kra–Dai languages]] in Southern China, possibly coastal [[Fujian]] or [[Guangdong]].<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.4324/9780203343685-20 |chapter=Kra-dai and Austronesian: Notes on phonological correspondences and vocabulary distribution WEERA OSTAPIRAT |title=The Peopling of East Asia |year=2005 |pages=135–159 |isbn=9780203343685 }}</ref>
====Austroasiatic====
;Austroasiatic
:[[Austroasiatic languages|Austroasiatic]] is widely held to be the oldest family in mainland Southeast Asia, with its current discontinuous distribution resulting from the later arrival of other families. The various branches share a great deal of vocabulary concerning rice cultivation, but few related to metals.<ref>{{cite book
:[[Austroasiatic languages|Austroasiatic]] is widely held to be the oldest family in mainland Southeast Asia, with its current discontinuous distribution resulting from the later arrival of other families. The various branches share a great deal of vocabulary concerning rice cultivation, but few related to metals.<ref>{{cite book
| given = Paul | surname = Sidwell | author-link = Paul Sidwell
| given = Paul | surname = Sidwell | author-link = Paul Sidwell
Line 79: Line 77:
| location = Leiden | publisher = BRILL | year = 2015
| location = Leiden | publisher = BRILL | year = 2015
| isbn = 978-90-04-28295-7
| isbn = 978-90-04-28295-7
}} p. 146.</ref> Identification of the homeland of the family has been hampered by the lack of progress on its branching. The main proposals are northern India (favoured by those who assume an early branching of [[Munda languages|Munda]]), Southeast Asia (the area of maximal diversity) and southern China (based on claimed loanwords in Chinese).<ref>{{cite book
}} p. 146.</ref> Identification of the homeland of the family has been hampered by the lack of progress on its branching. The main proposals are [[North India|Northern India]] (favoured by those who assume an early branching of [[Munda languages|Munda]]), [[Southeast Asia]] (the area of maximal diversity; most likely) and southern China (based on claimed loanwords in Chinese).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rau |first1=Felix |last2=Sidwell |first2=Paul |title=The Munda Maritime Hypothesis |journal=Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society |date=12 September 2019 |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=35–57 |id={{Gale|A651276154}} |hdl=10524/52454 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>
;Austronesian
| given = Paul | surname = Sidwell | author-link = Paul Sidwell
:The homeland of the [[Austronesian languages]] is widely accepted by linguists to be [[Taiwan]], since nine of its ten branches are found there, with all Austronesian languages found outside Taiwan belonging to the remaining [[Malayo-Polynesian languages|Malayo-Polynesian]] branch.<ref>{{cite book |surname=Blust |given=Robert |author-link=Robert Blust |title=The Austronesian Languages |edition=revised |publisher=Australian National University |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-922185-07-5 |hdl=1885/10191 |hdl-access=free |page=749}}</ref>
| title = Classifying the Austroasiatic Languages: history and state of the art
| location = Munich | publisher = Lincom Europa | year = 2009
| isbn = 978-3-929075-67-0
}} pp. 62–64.</ref>
====Austronesian====
:The homeland of the [[Austronesian languages]] is widely accepted by linguists to be the island of [[Taiwan]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Blust |first=Robert |title=The Austronesian Languages |edition=revised|publisher=Australian National University|year=2013|isbn=978-1-922185-07-5|hdl=1885/10191 |page=756}}</ref>


===North America===
===North America===
====Eskimo–Aleut====
;Eskimo–Aleut
:The [[Eskimo–Aleut languages]] originated in the region of the [[Bering Strait]] or [[Southwest Alaska]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Holton |first1=Gary |title=Language Relationships |url=https://www.uaf.edu/anlc/languages.php |website=Alaska Native Language Center |access-date=19 November 2020}}</ref>
:The [[Eskimo–Aleut languages]] originated in the region of the [[Bering Strait]] or [[Southwest Alaska]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Holton |first1=Gary |title=Language Relationships |url=https://www.uaf.edu/anlc/languages.php |website=Alaska Native Language Center |access-date=19 November 2020}}</ref>
====Na-Dené and Yeniseian====
;Na-Dené and Yeniseian
:The [[Dené–Yeniseian languages|Dené–Yeniseian]] hypothesis proposes that the [[Na-Dené languages]] of North America and the [[Yeniseian languages]] of Central Siberia share a common ancestor. Suggested homelands for this family include Central or West Asia,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ruhlen |first1=Merritt |title=The origin of the Na-Dene |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |date=10 November 1998 |volume=95 |issue=23 |pages=13994–13996 |doi=10.1073/pnas.95.23.13994 |pmid=9811914 |pmc=25007 |url=https://www.pnas.org/content/95/23/13994 |language=en |issn=0027-8424}}</ref> Siberia,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Potter |first1=Ben A. |title=Archaeological Patterning in Northeast Asia and Northwest North America: An Examination of the Dene-Yeniseian Hypothesis |journal=Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska |date=2010 |volume=5 |issue=1–2 |pages=138–167}}</ref> or [[Beringia]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sicoli |first1=Mark A. |last2=Holton |first2=Gary |title=Linguistic Phylogenies Support Back-Migration from Beringia to Asia |journal=PLOS ONE |date=12 March 2014 |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=e91722 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0091722 |pmid=24621925 |pmc=3951421 |url=https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0091722 |language=en |issn=1932-6203}}</ref> but there is currently not enough evidence to resolve the question.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Yanovich |first1=Igor |title=Phylogenetic linguistic evidence and the Dene-Yeniseian homeland |journal=Diachronica |date=16 September 2020 |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=410–446 |doi=10.1075/dia.17038.yan |url=https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/dia.17038.yan |language=en |issn=0176-4225}}</ref>
:The [[Dené–Yeniseian languages|Dené–Yeniseian]] hypothesis proposes that the [[Na-Dené languages]] of North America and the [[Yeniseian languages]] of Central Siberia share a common ancestor. Suggested homelands for this family include [[Central Asia|Central]] or [[West Asia]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ruhlen |first1=Merritt |title=The origin of the Na-Dene |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |date=10 November 1998 |volume=95 |issue=23 |pages=13994–13996 |doi=10.1073/pnas.95.23.13994 |pmid=9811914 |pmc=25007 |bibcode=1998PNAS...9513994R |doi-access=free }}</ref> [[Siberia]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Potter |first1=Ben A. |title=Archaeological Patterning in Northeast Asia and Northwest North America: An Examination of the Dene-Yeniseian Hypothesis |journal=Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska |date=2010 |volume=5 |issue=1–2 |pages=138–167}}</ref> or [[Beringia]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sicoli |first1=Mark A. |last2=Holton |first2=Gary |title=Linguistic Phylogenies Support Back-Migration from Beringia to Asia |journal=PLOS ONE |date=12 March 2014 |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=e91722 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0091722 |pmid=24621925 |pmc=3951421 |bibcode=2014PLoSO...991722S |doi-access=free }}</ref> but there is currently not enough evidence to resolve the question.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Yanovich |first1=Igor |title=Phylogenetic linguistic evidence and the Dene-Yeniseian homeland |journal=Diachronica |date=16 September 2020 |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=410–446 |doi=10.1075/dia.17038.yan |s2cid=209542004 }}</ref>
====Algic====
;Algic
:The [[Algic languages]] are distributed from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of North America. It is suggested that [[Proto-Algic]] was spoken on the [[Columbia Plateau]]. From there, pre-[[Wiyot language|Wiyot]] and pre-[[Yurok language|Yurok]] speakers moved southwest to the [[North Coast (California)|North Coast]] of California, while the pre-[[Proto-Algonquian language|Proto-Algonquian speakers]] moved to the [[Northern Plains]], which was the center of dispersal of the [[Algonquian languages]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Bakker |first=Peter |year=2013 |chapter=Diachrony and typology in the history of Cree |editor1=Folke Josephson |editor2=Ingmar Söhrman |title=Diachronic and typological perspectives on verbs |location=Amsterdam |publisher=John Benjamins |pages=223–260}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Golla |first=Victor |year=2011 |title=California Indian Languages |location=Berkeley |publisher=University of California Press |page=256}}</ref>
:The [[Algic languages]] are distributed from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of North America. It is suggested that [[Proto-Algic]] was spoken on the [[Columbia Plateau]]. From there, pre-[[Wiyot language|Wiyot]] and pre-[[Yurok language|Yurok]] speakers moved southwest to the [[North Coast (California)|North Coast]] of California, while the pre-[[Proto-Algonquian language|Proto-Algonquian speakers]] moved to the [[Great Plains]], which was the center of dispersal of the [[Algonquian languages]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Bakker |first=Peter |year=2013 |chapter=Diachrony and typology in the history of Cree |editor1=Folke Josephson |editor2=Ingmar Söhrman |title=Diachronic and typological perspectives on verbs |location=Amsterdam |publisher=John Benjamins |pages=223–260}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Golla |first=Victor |year=2011 |title=California Indian Languages |location=Berkeley |publisher=University of California Press |page=256}}</ref>
====Uto-Aztecan====
;Uto-Aztecan
:Some authorities on the history of the Uto-Aztecan language group place the [[Proto-Uto-Aztecan]] homeland in the border region between the USA and Mexico, namely the upland regions of Arizona and New Mexico and the adjacent areas of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, shown on the map (below left) roughly corresponding to the [[Sonoran Desert]]. The proto-language would have been spoken by foragers, about 5,000 years ago. [[Jane H. Hill|Hill]] (2001) proposes instead a homeland further south, making the assumed speakers of Proto-Uto-Aztecan maize cultivators in [[Mesoamerica]], who were gradually pushed north, bringing maize cultivation with them, during the period of roughly 4,500 to 3,000 years ago, the geographic diffusion of speakers corresponding to the breakup of linguistic unity.<ref>Jane H. Hill, "Proto-Uto-Aztecan", American Anthropologist, 2001. {{JSTOR|684121}}.</ref>
:Some authorities on the history of the [[Uto-Aztecan language family]] place the [[Proto-Uto-Aztecan]] homeland in the border region between the USA and Mexico, namely the upland regions of Arizona and New Mexico and the adjacent areas of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, roughly corresponding to the [[Sonoran Desert]]. The proto-language would have been spoken by foragers, about 5,000 years ago. [[Jane H. Hill|Hill]] (2001) proposes instead a homeland further south, making the assumed speakers of Proto-Uto-Aztecan maize cultivators in [[Mesoamerica]], who were gradually pushed north, bringing maize cultivation with them, during the period of roughly 4,500 to 3,000 years ago, the geographic diffusion of speakers corresponding to the breakup of linguistic unity.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hill |first1=Jane H. |title=Proto-Uto-Aztecan: A Community of Cultivators in Central Mexico? |journal=American Anthropologist |date=2001 |volume=103 |issue=4 |pages=913–934 |doi=10.1525/aa.2001.103.4.913 |jstor=684121 }}</ref>


===South America===
===South America===
====Tupian====
;Tupian
:[[Proto-Tupian language|Proto-Tupian]], the reconstructed common ancestor of the [[Tupian languages]] of South America, was probably spoken in the region between the [[Guaporé River|Guaporé]] and [[Aripuanã River|Aripuanã]] rivers, around 5,000 years ago.<ref name="SouthAmerica">Rodrigues, Aryon Dall'Igna, and Ana Suelly Arruda Câmara Cabral (2012). "Tupían". In Campbell, Lyle, and Verónica Grondona (eds). [https://books.google.com/books?id=pA-ryJRcG3AC ''The indigenous languages of South America: a comprehensive guide'']. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.</ref>
:[[Proto-Tupian language|Proto-Tupian]], the reconstructed common ancestor of the [[Tupian languages]] of South America, was probably spoken in the region between the [[Guaporé River|Guaporé]] and [[Aripuanã River|Aripuanã]] rivers, around 5,000 years ago.<ref name="SouthAmerica">{{cite book |last1=Rodrigues |first1=Aryon Dall'Igna |first2=Ana Suelly Arruda Câmara |last2=Cabral |chapter=Tupían |pages=495–574 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pA-ryJRcG3AC&pg=PA495 |editor1-last=Campbell |editor1-first=Lyle |editor2-last=Grondona |editor2-first=Verónica |title=The Indigenous Languages of South America: A Comprehensive Guide |date=2012 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-025803-5 }}</ref>


=== Turkic ===
===Africa and Middle East===
;Afroasiatic
:As [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] is the only branch of Afroasiatic found outside Africa, northeast Africa is considered the most likely location of the [[Afroasiatic homeland]]. An alternative theory, based on lexical comparisons with Indo-European, proposes a Neolithic expansion from the Middle East.<ref name="Porkhomovsky 2020">{{cite book |last1=Porkhomovsky |first1=Victor |editor1-last=Vossen |editor1-first=Rainer |editor2-last=Dimmendaal |editor2-first=Gerrit J. |title=The Oxford Handbook of African Languages |date=2020 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-960989-5 |pages=269–274 |chapter=Afro-Asiatic Overview}} p. 273.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Güldemann |first=Tom |chapter=Historical linguistics and genealogical language classification in Africa |title=The Languages and Linguistics of Africa |editor-last=Güldemann |editor-first=Tom |date=2018 |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |isbn=978-3-11-042606-9 |pages=58–444 }} p. 311.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Blažek |first=Václav |chapter=Levant and North Africa: Afroasiatic linguistic history |pages=125–132 |title=The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration |date=2013 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-4443-3489-0 |editor-last=Ness |editor-first=Immanuel |doi=10.1002/9781444351071.wbeghm815 }} p. 126.</ref> Proto-Afroasiatic is estimated to have begun to break up in the 8th millennium BCE.<ref name="Porkhomovsky 2020" /> [[Proto-Semitic]] is thought to have been spoken in the [[Near East]] between 4400 and 7400 BCE, with [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] representing its earliest known branch.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kitchen |first1=Andrew |last2=Ehret |first2=Christopher |last3=Assefa |first3=Shiferaw |last4=Mulligan |first4=Connie J. |title=Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic languages identifies an Early Bronze Age origin of Semitic in the Near East |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |date=7 August 2009 |volume=276 |issue=1668 |pages=2703–2710 |doi=10.1098/rspb.2009.0408 |pmid=19403539 |pmc=2839953 }}</ref>
;Niger–Congo
:Although the membership and subgrouping of the [[Niger–Congo languages|Niger–Congo]] remains unsettled, the widely-accepted core of the group includes over 1000 languages spoken from West Africa through most of Southern Africa.<ref>Güldemann (2018), p. 232.</ref> The homeland is thought to have been somewhere in the [[savanna]] belt of West Africa, with the [[Bantu expansion]] through the equatorial rainforests of Central Africa beginning around 3000 BCE.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ehret |first=Christopher |chapter=Sub-Saharan Africa: Linguistics |pages=96–106 |title=The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration |date=2013 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-4443-3489-0 |editor-last=Ness |editor-first=Immanuel |doi=10.1002/9781444351071.wbeghm815 }} pp. 98, 100.</ref>
;Mande
:[[Valentin Vydrin]] concluded that "the [[Mande languages|Mande]] homeland at the second half of the 4th millennium BC was located in Southern [[Sahara]], somewhere to the North of 16° or even 18° of Northern latitude and between 3° and 12° of Western longitude."<ref name="Vydrin II">{{cite web |last1=Vydrin |first1=Valentin |title=On the Problem of the Proto-Mande Homeland |url=http://www.jolr.ru/files/(10)jlr2009-1(107-142).pdf |website=Journal of Language Relationship }}</ref> That is now [[Mauritania]] and/or southern [[Western Sahara]].<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_BVoBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA170 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220414122935/https://books.google.com/books?id=_BVoBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA170 |archive-date=2022-04-14 |url-status=live |chapter-url-access=limited |chapter=Rice and Rice Farmers in the Upper Guinea Coast and Environmental History |first=Edda L. |last=Fields-Black |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=170 |title=Rice: Global Networks and New Histories |date=2015 | isbn=9781107044395 |editor-first1=Francesca |editor-last1=Bray |editor-first2=Peter A. |editor-last2=Coclanis |editor-first3=Edda L. |editor-last3=Fields-Black |editor-first4=Dagmar |editor-last4=Schäfer }}</ref>
;Nilo-Saharan
:The validity of the [[Nilo-Saharan languages|Nilo-Saharan family]] remains controversial. Proponents of the family view the border area between [[Chad]], [[Sudan]], and the [[Central African Republic]] as a likely candidate for its homeland from around the start of the Holocene.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dimmendaal |first=Gerrit J. |year=2020 |chapter=Nilo-Saharan and Its Limits |editor1=Rainer Vossen |editor2=Gerrit J. Dimmendaal |title=The Oxford Handbook of African Languages |pages=364–382 |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199609895.013.15 |isbn=978-0-19-960989-5 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wcjXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA380}}</ref>
;Central-Sudanic
:The original homeland of [[Central Sudanic languages|Central Sudanic]] speakers is likely somewhere in the [[Bahr el Ghazal (region of South Sudan)|Bahr el Ghazal]] region.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JlahAwAAQBAJ&dq=central+sudanic+languages+homeland&pg=PT193|title = The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns|isbn = 9781134679492|last1 = Andah|first1 = Bassey|last2 = Okpoko|first2 = Alex|last3 = Shaw|first3 = Thurstan|last4 = Sinclair|first4 = Paul|date = 22 May 2014| publisher=Routledge }}</ref>
;Khoe-Kwadi
:The homeland of [[Khoe–Kwadi languages|Khoe-Kwadi]] was likely the middle [[Zambezi Valley]] over 2,000 years ago.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pDjlC1ws158C&dq=khoi+khoi+zambezi+valley&pg=PA185|title=The Peopling of Africa: A Geographic Interpretation|isbn=0300072805|last1=Newman|first1=James L.|date=January 1995|publisher=Yale University Press }}</ref>


===Australia===
{{split section|Turkic homeland|date=January 2018}}
;Pama-Nyungan
[[File:Map-TurkicLanguages.png|left|thumb|upright=1.25|The countries and autonomous regions where a Turkic language has official status.]]
The [[Gulf Plains]], west of [[Queensland]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bouckaert |first1=Remco R. |last2=Bowern |first2=Claire |last3=Atkinson |first3=Quentin D. |title=The origin and expansion of Pama–Nyungan languages across Australia |journal=Nature Ecology & Evolution |date=April 2018 |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=741–749 |doi=10.1038/s41559-018-0489-3|pmid=29531347 |bibcode=2018NatEE...2..741B |s2cid=256707821 }}</ref>

There is considerable dispute over the time and place of origin of the [[Turkic language]]s, with candidates for their ancient homeland ranging from the [[Transcaspian]] steppe to [[Manchuria]] in [[Northeast Asia]] and [[Geography of South-Central Siberia|South-Central-Siberia]].<ref>{{cite journal | doi = 10.1371/journal.pgen.1005068|biorxiv=10.1101/005850 | title=The Genetic Legacy of the Expansion of Turkic-Speaking Nomads Across Eurasia | url = https://archive.org/details/biorxiv-10.1101-005850 | year=2014 | last1 = Yunusbayev | first1 = B.| journal=PLOS Genetics | volume=11 | issue=4 | pages=e1005068 | pmid=25898006 | pmc=4405460 | s2cid=196602588 }}</ref><ref>Römer, Claudia. Von den Hunnen zu den Türken – dunkle Vorgeschichte, in: Zentralasien. 13. bis 20. Jahrhundert. Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Wien 2006, p. 61</ref><ref>[[Róna-Tas, András]]. "The Reconstruction of Proto-Turkic and the Genetic Question." In: [https://books.google.com/books?id=U1009DRu_vMC The Turkic Languages], pp. 67–80. 1998.</ref> The lack of written records prior to the earliest Chinese accounts, and the fact that the early Turkic peoples were nomadic pastoralists, and hence mobile, makes localizing and dating the earliest homeland of the Turkic language difficult. Attempts to localize the [[proto-Turkic]] Urheimat are usually connected with the early archaeological horizon of west and central [[Siberia]] and in the region south of it.<ref name="Johanson68">[[Róna-Tas, András]]. "''The Reconstruction of Proto-Turkic and the Genetic Question''." In: [https://books.google.com/books?id=U1009DRu_vMC The Turkic Languages], pp. 67–80. 1998.</ref>

The Turkic peoples lived in the [[Eurasian Steppe]] including North [[China]], especially [[Xinjiang Province]], [[Inner Mongolia]], [[Mongolia]] and [[West Siberian Plain]] possibly as far west as [[Lake Baikal]] and the [[Altai Mountains]], by the 6th century CE. After Turkic migration, by the 10th century CE, most of Central Asia, formerly dominated by Iranian peoples, was settled by Turkic tribes. Then, the Seljuk Turks from the 11th century invaded Anatolia, ultimately resulting in permanent Turkic settlement there and the establishment of the Turkish nation. The [[Turkic language]]s are now spoken in Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Siberia.

=== Uralic ===
[[File:European-late-neolithic-english.svg|thumb|right|upright=1.5|Europe during the Neolithic period]]
The [[Proto-Uralic homeland hypotheses|Uralic homeland]] is unknown. A possible focus is the [[Comb Ceramic Culture]] of ''ca'' 4200 – ''ca'' 2000 BCE (shown on the adjacent map). This is suggested by the high language diversity around the middle [[Volga River]], where three highly distinct branches of the Uralic family, [[Mordvinic languages|Mordvinic]], [[Mari language|Mari]], and [[Permic languages|Permic]], are located. Reconstructed plant and animal names (including [[spruce]], [[Siberian pine]], [[Siberian Fir]], [[Siberian larch]], [[Salix fragilis|brittle willow]], [[elm]], and [[hedgehog]]) are consistent with this location. This is adjacent to the proposed homeland for Proto-Indo-European under the Kurgan hypothesis.

As noted below, many notable linguists have proposed that the [[Eskimo-Aleut languages]] and [[Uralic languages]] have a common origin, although there is no consensus that this connection is genuine. A [[genetic relationship (linguistics)|genetic relationship]] between Uralic and the Indo-European languages has also been proposed (see [[Indo-Uralic languages]]).

===Africa===
====Nilo-Saharan====
:Although the validity of the [[Nilo-Saharan languages|Nilo-Saharan family]] remains controversial, the border area between [[Chad]], [[Sudan]], and the [[Central African Republic]] is seen as a likely candidate for its homeland prior to its dispersal around 10,000–8,000 BP.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dimmendaal |first=Gerrit J. |year=2020 |chapter=Nilo-Saharan and Its Limits |editor1=Rainer Vossen |editor2=Gerrit J. Dimmendaal |title=The Oxford Handbook of African Languages |pages=364–382 |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199609895.013.15 |isbn=9780199609895 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wcjXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA380}}</ref>
====Afro-Asiatic====
{{Main|Afro-Asiatic Urheimat}}

The Afro-Asiatic languages include [[Arabic]], [[Hebrew]], [[Berber language|Berber]], and a variety of other languages now found mostly in Northeastern Africa, although the exact boundaries of this language family are disputed in the case of a small number of languages spoken by small numbers of individuals in a few localized areas of Sudan and East Africa.

The limited area of the [[Afro-Asiatic languages|Afro-Asiatic]] Sprachraum (prior to its expansion to new areas in the historic era) has limited the potential areas where that family's Urheimat could be. Generally speaking, two proposals have been developed: that Afro-Asiatic arose in a [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] Urheimat in the Middle East aka Southwest Asia, or that Afro-Asiatic languages arose in northeast Africa (generally, either between [[Darfur]] and [[Tibesti]] or in [[Ethiopia]] and the other countries of the [[Horn of Africa]]).<ref>https://www.britannica.com/topic/Afro-Asiatic-languages</ref><ref>https://indo-european.eu/2017/07/potential-afroasiatic-or-afrasian-proto-language-urheimat-in-the-megachad-lake/</ref> The African hypothesis is considered to be rather more likely at the present time, because of the greater diversity of languages with more distant relationships to each other there.{{citation needed}}

There have been serious linguistic proponents of almost every conceivable possible set of relationships of the Afro-Asiatic language subfamilies to each other, although there is reasonably great consensus concerning the subfamily classification of all but a few of the Afro-Asiatic languages.{{citation needed}} Some of this difficulty in resolving the Afro-Asiatic family tree flows from the time depth of these languages. The Afro-Asiatic [[Egyptian language]] of ancient Egypt (whose latest stage is known as Coptic) is one of the two oldest written languages on Earth (the other being the [[Sumerian language]], a [[language isolate]]<ref>https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sumerian-language</ref>) dating in written form to approximately 3000 BCE<ref name="James Egyptian">{{cite book |title=The Ancient Egyptian Language |surname=Allen |given=James P. |author-link=James Peter Allen |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-107-66467-8 |page=2 }}</ref>, and the Semitic [[Akkadian language]] was also attested in writing from a very early date (ca. 2000 BCE).<ref>John Huehnergard and Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", in Roger D. Woodard, ed., ''The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum'', Cambridge University Press, 2008, p.83</ref> A common Afro-Asiatic proto-language is necessarily older than these very old written languages which belonged to language families that had already diverged from each other considerably by that point. There is also no one genetic profile that is uniform among Afro-Asiatic language speakers that clearly unites them.{{citation needed}} There are also competing theories on whether the Afro-Asiatic language family owes its expansion to the Neolithic revolution that originated in an area that includes the range of the Afro-Asiatic language, or was already widespread in the Upper Paleolithic era.{{citation needed}}

===== Semitic =====
{{Main|Proto-Semitic language#Homeland}}
There has been speculation regarding the specific [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] subfamily of Afro-Asiatic languages, again with the Horn of Africa and Southwest Asia—specifically the [[Levant]]—being the most common proposals.{{citation needed}} The large number of Semitic languages present in the Horn of Africa seems at first glance to support the hypothesis that the Semitic homeland lies there. However, the Semitic languages in the Horn of Africa all belong to the [[South Semitic languages|South Semitic]] subfamily and appear to all have relatively recent common origins in a single Ethio-Semitic proto-language, while the [[East Semitic languages|East]] and [[Central Semitic languages]] are native solely to Asia.{{citation needed}} These features, and the presence of certain common Semitic lexical items in all Ethio-Semitic languages referring to items that arrived in Africa from the Levant at a time after Semitic languages were known to have been spoken in the Levant, have lent weight to the Levantine proposal.

Hebrew is relatively closely related to the [[Arabic language]] even within the Semitic language family, being part of the same Central Semitic group.<ref>https://mastercaweb.u-strasbg.fr/2019/08/connections-between-arabic-and-hebrew-language?lang=en#:~:text=Hebrew%20and%20Arabic%20are%20different,Hebrew%20letters%20cannot%20be%20joined.</ref>

The [[Maltese language]], the only other Semitic language of Europe, is a derivative of the [[Sicilian Arabic|Arabic language]] as it was spoken in Sicily starting sometime after the rise of the Islamic empire in North Africa.{{citation needed}}

==== Niger–Congo ====
{{Main|Niger–Congo homeland}}
The homeland of the [[Niger–Congo]] languages, which has as its subfamily the [[Benue–Congo]] languages, which in turn includes the [[Bantu languages]], is not known in time or place, beyond the fact that it probably originated in or near the area where these languages were spoken prior to [[Bantu expansion]] (i.e. West Africa or Central Africa) and probably predated the Bantu expansion of ca. 3000 BCE through 500 CE by many thousands of years.<ref name="Jared Diamond 2000">Jared Diamond, "Guns, Germs and Steel" (2000)</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bostoen|first=Koen|date=2018-04-26|title=The Bantu Expansion|url=https://oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-191|journal=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History|language=en|doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.191|isbn=9780190277734}}</ref> Its expansion may have been associated with the expansion of Sahel agriculture in the African Neolithic period.<ref name="Jared Diamond 2000" />

According to linguist [[Roger Blench]], as of 2004, all specialists in Niger–Congo languages believe the languages to have a common origin, rather than merely constituting a typological classification, for reasons including their shared noun-class system, their shared verbal extensions and their shared basic lexicon.<ref name="rogerblench.info">{{cite book |last=Blench |first=Roger |year=2004 |title=THE BENUE-CONGO LANGUAGES: A PROPOSED INTERNAL CLASSIFICATION (Unpublished Working Draft) |url=http://www.rogerblench.info/Language/Niger-Congo/BC/General/Benue-Congo%20classification%20latest.pdf}}</ref><ref>See also Bendor-Samuel, J. ed. 1989. The Niger–Congo Languages. Lanham: University Press of America.</ref> Similar classifications have been made ever since [[Diedrich Westermann]] in 1922.<ref>Westermann, D. 1922a. Die Sprache der Guang. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.</ref> [[Joseph Greenberg]] continued that tradition making it the starting point for modern linguistic classification in Africa, with some of his most notable publications going to press starting in the 1960s.<ref>Greenberg, J.H. 1964. Historical inferences from linguistic research in sub-Saharan Africa. Boston University Papers in African History, 1:1–15.</ref> But, there has been active debate for many decades over the appropriate subclassifications of the languages in that language family, which is a key tool used in localizing a language's place of origin.<ref name="rogerblench.info" /> No definitive "Proto-Niger–Congo" lexicon or grammar has been developed for the language family as a whole.

An important unresolved issue in determining the time and place where the Niger–Congo languages originated and their range prior to recorded history is this language family's relationship to the [[Kordofanian languages]] now spoken in the Nuba mountains of [[Sudan]], which is not contiguous with the remainder of the Niger–Congo language speaking region and is at the northeasternmost extent of the current Niger–Congo linguistic region. The current prevailing linguistic view is that Kordofanian languages are part of the Niger–Congo language family, and that among the many languages still surviving in that region these may be the oldest.<ref>Herman Bell. 1995. The Nuba Mountains: Who Spoke What in 1976?. (The published results from a major project of the Institute of African and Asian Studies: the Language Survey of the Nuba Mountains.)</ref> The evidence is insufficient to determine if this outlier group of Niger–Congo language speakers represent a prehistoric range of a Niger–Congo linguistic region that has since contracted as other languages have intruded, or if instead, this represents a group of Niger–Congo language speakers who migrated to the area at some point in prehistory where they were an isolated linguistic community from the beginning.

The prehistoric range for the Niger–Congo languages has implications, not just for the history of the Niger–Congo languages, but for the origins of the Afro-Asiatic languages and Nilo-Saharan languages whose homelands have been hypothesized by some to overlap with the Niger–Congo linguistic range prior to recorded history. If the consensus view regarding the origins of the Nilo-Saharan languages which came to East Africa is adopted, and a North African or Southwest Asian origin for Afro-Asiatic languages is assumed, the linguistic affiliation of East Africa prior to the arrival of Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic languages is left open. The overlap between the potential areas of origin for these languages in East Africa is particularly notable because includes the regions from which the Proto-Eurasians who brought anatomically modern humans Out of Africa, and presumably their original proto-language or languages originated.

However, there is more agreement regarding the place of origin of the [[Benue–Congo]] subfamily of languages, which is the largest subfamily of the group, and the place of origin of the Bantu languages and the time at which it started to expand is known with great specificity.

The classification of the relatively divergent family of [[Ubangian languages]] which are centered in the Central African Republic, as part of the Niger–Congo language family where Greenberg classified them in 1963 and subsequently scholars concurred,<ref>Williamson, Kay & Blench, Roger (2000) 'Niger–Congo', in Heine, Bernd & Nurse, Derek (eds.) African languages: an introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref> was called into question, by linguist Gerrit Dimmendaal in a 2008 article.<ref>Gerrit Dimmendaal (2008) "Language Ecology and Linguistic Diversity on the African Continent", Language and Linguistics Compass 2/5:841.</ref>

===== Benue-Congo =====
{{see|Bantu expansion}}
[[File:Nigeria Benin Cameroon languages.png|thumb|right|upright=1.25|The Benue-Congo homeland]]
[[Roger Blench]], relying particularly on prior work by Professor [[Kay Williamson]] of the University of Port Harcourt, and the linguist P. De Wolf, who each took the same position, has argued that a [[Benue–Congo]] linguistic subfamily of the Niger–Congo language family, which includes the Bantu languages and other related languages and would be the largest branch of Niger–Congo, is an empirically supported grouping which probably originated at the confluence of the Benue and Niger Rivers in Central Nigeria.<ref name="rogerblench.info" /><ref>Williamson, K. 1971. The Benue–Congo languages and Ijo. Current Trends in Linguistics, 7. ed. T. Sebeok 245–306. The Hague: Mouton.</ref><ref>Williamson, K. 1988. Linguistic evidence for the prehistory of the Niger Delta. The early history of the Niger Delta, edited by E.J. Alagoa, F.N. Anozie and N. Nzewunwa. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.</ref><ref>Williamson, K. 1989. Benue–Congo Overview. In The Niger–Congo Languages. J. Bendor-Samuel ed. Lanham: University Press of America.</ref><ref>De Wolf, P. 1971. The noun class system of Proto-Benue–Congo. The Hague: Mouton.</ref><ref>Blench, R.M. 1989. A proposed new classification of Benue–Congo languages. Afrikanische Arbeitspapiere, Köln, 17:115–147.</ref> These estimates of the place of origin of the Benue-Congo language family do not fix a date for the start of that expansion other than that it must have been sufficiently prior to the Bantu expansion to allow for the diversification of the languages within this language family that includes Bantu.

There is a widespread consensus among linguistic scholars that [[Bantu languages]] of the Niger–Congo family have a homeland near the coastal boundary of [[Nigeria]] and [[Cameroon]], prior to a rapid expansion from that homeland starting about 3000 BCE.<ref name="ReferenceA">Michael C. Campbell and Sarah A. Tishkoff, "The Evolution of Human Genetic and Phenotypic Variation in Africa," ''Current Biology'', Volume 20, Issue 4, R166–R173, 23 February 2010</ref><ref name="Jared Diamond 2000" /><ref>Greenberg, J.H. 1972. Linguistic evidence regarding Bantu origins. Journal of African History, 13.</ref><ref>{{Citation | doi = 10.1017/S0021853700034101 | jstor = 182309 | last1 = Vansina | first1 = J. | year = 1995 | title = New Linguistic Evidence and the 'Bantu Expansion' | journal = Journal of African History | volume = 36 | issue = 2| pages = 173–195 | postscript = . }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Flight | first1 = C. | year = 1980 | title = Malcolm Guthrie and the reconstruction of Bantu prehistory | journal = History in Africa | volume = 7 | pages = 81–118 | jstor = 3171657 | doi = 10.2307/3171657 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Flight | first1 = C. | year = 1988 | title = The Bantu expansion and the SOAS network | journal = History in Africa | volume = 15 | pages = 261–301 | jstor = 3171863 | doi = 10.2307/3171863 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Bastin | first1 = Y. | year = 1994 | title = Reconstruction formelle et sémantique de la dénomination de quelques mammiferes en Bantou | journal = Afrikanische Arbeitspapiere | volume = 38 | pages = 5–132 }}</ref>


== See also ==
== See also ==
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== Sources==
== Sources==
{{refbegin}}
{{refbegin}}
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* {{Citation |last=Anthony |first=David W. |year=2007 |title=The Horse, the Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World |publisher=Princeton University Press}}
* {{Citation |last=Anthony |first=David W. |year=2007 |title=The Horse, the Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World |publisher=Princeton University Press}}
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* {{Citation |last1=Bellwood |first1=Peter S. |year=2000|title=Presejarah Kepulauan Indo-Malaysia}} (Translation of {{Harvnb|Bellwood|2007}})
* {{Citation |author=Peter S. Bellwood|title=Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago|publisher=University of Hawai'i Press|year=1997 |isbn=978-0-8248-1907-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4obAfGBGKY0C&q=Prehistory%20of%20the%20Indo-Malaysian%20Archipelago&pg=PR3 |postscript=. }}
* {{Citation |last1=Bellwood |first1=Peter S. |year=2000|title=Presejarah Kepulauan Indo-Malaysia |postscript=. (Translation of {{Harvnb|Bellwood|1997}}) }}
* {{cite journal |last=Blust |first=Robert |year=1984 |title=The Austronesian Homeland: A Linguistic Perspective |journal=Asian Perspectives |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=45–67 |jstor=42928105}}
* {{cite journal |last=Blust |first=Robert |year=1984 |title=The Austronesian Homeland: A Linguistic Perspective |journal=Asian Perspectives |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=45–67 |jstor=42928105}}
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* {{Cite journal |last1=Gray |first1=Russell D. |last2=Atkinson |first2=Quentin D. |year=2003 |title=Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin |journal=Nature |volume=426 |issue=6965 |pages=435–439 |doi=10.1038/nature02029 |pmid=14647380| bibcode=2003Natur.426..435G |s2cid=42340 |url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d6aef57c-ce30-40fb-8786-f64c4a70afd1 }}
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* {{cite book |last1=Koerner |first1=E. F. K. |chapter=Linguistics and Ideology in 19th and 20th Century Studies of Language |pages=253–276 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4c09AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA253 |editor1-last=Dirven |editor1-first=René |editor2-last=Hawkins |editor2-first=Bruce |editor3-last=Sandikcioglu |editor3-first=Esra |title=Language and Ideology: Volume 1: theoretical cognitive approaches |date=2001 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |isbn=978-90-272-9954-3 }}
* {{Cite journal |last1=Haak|first1=W. |last2=Lazaridis|first2=I. |last3=Patterson|first3=N. |last4=Rohland|first4=N. |last5=Mallick|first5=S. |last6=Llamas|first6=B. |last7=Brandt|first7=G. |last8=Nordenfelt|first8=S. |last9=Harney|first9=E. |year=2015 |title=Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe| journal=Nature |doi=10.1038/nature14317 |last10=Stewardson|first10=K. |last11=Fu|first11=Q. |last12=Mittnik|first12=A. |last13=Bánffy|first13=E. |last14=Economou|first14=C. |last15=Francken|first15=M. |last16=Friederich|first16=S. |last17=Pena|first17=R. G. |last18=Hallgren|first18=F. |last19=Khartanovich|first19=V. |last20=Khokhlov|first20=A. |last21=Kunst|first21=M. |last22=Kuznetsov|first22=P. |last23=Meller|first23=H. |last24=Mochalov|first24=O. |last25=Moiseyev|first25=V. |last26=Nicklisch|first26=N. |last27=Pichler|first27=S. L. |last28=Risch|first28=R. |last29=Rojo Guerra|first29=M. A. |last30=Roth|first30=C. |display-authors=29 |volume=522 |issue=7555 |pages=207–211 |bibcode=2015Natur.522..207H |pmid=25731166 |pmc=5048219|arxiv=1502.02783}}
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* {{Citation |last=Mallory |first=J.P. |author-link=J.P. Mallory |year=1989 |title=In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth |place=London |publisher=Thames & Hudson}}.
* {{Citation |last=Mallory |first=James P. |author-link=JP Mallory |year=1997 |contribution=The homelands of the Indo-Europeans |editor-last=Blench |editor-first=Roger |editor2-last=Spriggs |editor2-first=Matthew |title=Archaeology and Language |location=London |publisher=Routledge |volume=I: ''Theoretical and Methodological Orientations'' |isbn=978-0-415-11760-9}}.
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{{Citation | surname = Sohn | given = Ho-Min | title = The Korean Language | location = Cambridge | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 1999 | isbn = 978-0-521-36123-1 |postscript=. }}
{{refend}}
{{refend}}


{{Authority control}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Urheimat| ]]
[[Category:Urheimat| ]]
[[Category:Historical linguistics]]
[[Category:Historical linguistics]]

Latest revision as of 01:10, 10 November 2024

In historical linguistics, the homeland or Urheimat (/ˈʊərhmɑːt/ OOR-hye-maht, from German ur- 'original' and Heimat 'home') of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the reconstructed or historically-attested parent language of a group of languages that are genetically related.

Depending on the age of the language family under consideration, its homeland may be known with near-certainty (in the case of historical or near-historical migrations) or it may be very uncertain (in the case of deep prehistory). Next to internal linguistic evidence, the reconstruction of a prehistoric homeland makes use of a variety of disciplines, including archaeology and archaeogenetics.

Methods

There are several methods to determine the homeland of a given language family. One method is based on the vocabulary that can be reconstructed for the proto-language. This vocabulary – especially terms for flora and fauna – can provide clues for the geographical and ecological environment in which the proto-language was spoken. An estimate for the time-depth of the proto-language is necessary in order to account for prehistorical changes in climate and the distribution of flora and fauna.[1][2]

Another method is based on the linguistic migration theory (first proposed by Edward Sapir), which states that the most likely candidate for the last homeland of a language family can be located in the area of its highest linguistic diversity.[3] This presupposes an established view about the internal subgrouping of the language family. Different assumptions about high-order subgrouping can thus lead to very divergent proposals for a linguistic homeland (e.g. Isidore Dyen's proposal for New Guinea as the center of dispersal of the Austronesian languages).[4] The linguistic migration theory has its limits because it only works when linguistic diversity evolves continuously without major disruptions. Its results can be distorted e.g. when this diversity is wiped out by more recent migrations.[5]

Limitations of the concept

The concept of a (single, identifiable) "homeland" of a given language family implies a purely genealogical view of the development of languages. This assumption is often reasonable and useful, but it is by no means a logical necessity, as languages are well known to be susceptible to areal change such as substrate or superstrate influence.

Time depth

Over a sufficient period of time, in the absence of evidence of intermediary steps in the process, it may be impossible to observe linkages between languages that have a shared Urheimat: given enough time, natural language change will obliterate any meaningful linguistic evidence of a common genetic source. This general concern is a manifestation of the larger issue of "time depth" in historical linguistics.[6]

For example, the languages of the New World are believed to be descended from a relatively "rapid" peopling of the Americas (relative to the duration of the Upper Paleolithic) within a few millennia (roughly between 20,000 and 15,000 years ago),[7] but their genetic relationship has become completely obscured over the more than ten millennia which have passed between their separation and their first written record in the early modern period. Similarly, the Australian Aboriginal languages are divided into some 28 families and isolates for which no genetic relationship can be shown.[8]

The Urheimaten reconstructed using the methods of comparative linguistics typically estimate separation times dating to the Neolithic or later. It is undisputed that fully developed languages were present throughout the Upper Paleolithic, and possibly into the deep Middle Paleolithic (see origin of language, behavioral modernity). These languages would have spread with the early human migrations of the first "peopling of the world", but they are no longer amenable to linguistic reconstruction. The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) has imposed linguistic separation lasting several millennia on many Upper Paleolithic populations in Eurasia, as they were forced to retreat into "refugia" before the advancing ice sheets. After the end of the LGM, Mesolithic populations of the Holocene again became more mobile, and most of the prehistoric spread of the world's major linguistic families seem to reflect the expansion of population cores during the Mesolithic followed by the Neolithic Revolution.

The Nostratic theory is the best-known attempt to expand the deep prehistory of the main language families of Eurasia (excepting Sino-Tibetan and the languages of Southeast Asia) to the beginning of the Holocene. First proposed in the early 20th century, the Nostratic theory still receives serious consideration, but it is by no means generally accepted. The more recent and more speculative "Borean" hypothesis attempts to unite Nostratic with Dené–Caucasian and Austric, in a "mega-phylum" that would unite most languages of Eurasia, with a time depth going back to the Last Glacial Maximum.

The argument surrounding the "Proto-Human language", finally, is almost completely detached from linguistic reconstruction, instead surrounding questions of phonology and the origin of speech. Time depths involved in the deep prehistory of all the world's extant languages are of the order of at least 100,000 years.[9]

Language contact and creolization

The concept of an Urheimat only applies to populations speaking a proto-language defined by the tree model. This is not always the case.

For example, in places where language families meet, the relationship between a group that speaks a language and the Urheimat for that language is complicated by "processes of migration, language shift and group absorption are documented by linguists and ethnographers" in groups that are themselves "transient and plastic." Thus, in the contact area in western Ethiopia between languages belonging to the Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic families, the Nilo-Saharan-speaking Nyangatom and the Afroasiatic-speaking Daasanach have been observed to be closely related to each other but genetically distinct from neighboring Afroasiatic-speaking populations. This is a reflection of the fact that the Daasanach, like the Nyangatom, originally spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, with the ancestral Daasanach later adopting an Afroasiatic language around the 19th century.[10]

Creole languages are hybrids of languages that are sometimes unrelated. Similarities arise from the creole formation process, rather than from genetic descent.[11] For example, a creole language may lack significant inflectional morphology, lack tone on monosyllabic words, or lack semantically opaque word formation, even if these features are found in all of the parent languages of the languages from which the creole was formed.[12]

Isolates

Some languages are language isolates. That is to say, they have no well accepted language family connection, no nodes in a family tree, and therefore no known Urheimat. An example is the Basque language of Northern Spain and southwest France. Nevertheless, it is a scientific fact that all languages evolve. An unknown Urheimat may still be hypothesized, such as that for a Proto-Basque, and may be supported by archaeological and historical evidence.

Sometimes relatives are found for a language originally believed to be an isolate. An example is the Etruscan language, which, even though only partially understood, is believed to be related to the Rhaetic language and to the Lemnian language. A single family may be an isolate. In the case of the non-Austronesian indigenous languages of Papua New Guinea and the indigenous languages of Australia, there is no published linguistic hypothesis supported by any evidence that these languages have links to any other families. Nevertheless, an unknown Urheimat is implied. The entire Indo-European family itself is a language isolate: no further connections are known. This lack of information does not prevent some professional linguists from formulating additional hypothetical nodes (Nostratic) and additional homelands for the speakers.

Homelands of major language families

Western and central Eurasia

Map showing the present-day distribution of Indo-European languages in Eurasia (light green) and the likely Proto-Indo-European homeland (dark green)
Indo-European
The identification of the Proto-Indo-European homeland has been debated for centuries, but the steppe hypothesis is now widely accepted, placing it in the Pontic–Caspian steppe in the late 5th millennium BCE.[13] The leading alternative is the Anatolian hypothesis, proposing a homeland in Anatolia in the early 7th millennium BCE.[14]
Caucasian
The unrelated Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian (Abkhaz-Adygean) and Northeast Caucasian (Nakh-Daghestanian) language families are presumed to be indigenous to the Caucasus.[15] There is extensive evidence for contact between the Caucasian languages, especially Proto-Kartvelian, and Proto-Indo-European, indicating that they were spoken in close proximity at least three to four thousand years ago.[16][17]
Dravidian
Although Dravidian languages are now concentrated in southern India, isolated pockets further north, placenames and substrate influences on Indo-Aryan languages indicate that they were once spoken more widely across the Indian subcontinent.[18] Reconstructed Proto-Dravidian terms for flora and fauna support the idea that Dravidian is indigenous to India.[19] Proponents of a migration from the northwest cite the location of Brahui, a hypothesized connection to the undeciphered Indus script, and claims of a link to Elamite.[20]
Turkic
Turkic languages are today spoken across an area stretching from northwest China to the edge of Europe, but Proto-Turkic lexical items about the climate, topography, flora, fauna and subsistence point to a homeland in the taiga-steppe zone of southern Siberia and Mongolia around the Altai-Sayan region.[21] Early contact with Mongolic languages also points to this area.[22] Genetic studies suggest that most of the expansion of the language family was due to language replacement rather than migration, but have identified shared elements originating from the South Siberia-Mongolia area.[23]
Uralic
Inherited tree names seem to indicate a Uralic homeland to the east of the Ural Mountains. The internal branching of the family suggests an area between the Ob River and Yenisey River.[24] Uralic speakers are not genetically distinguished from their neighbours, but do share a genetic component that is of Siberian origin.[25][26]

Eastern Eurasia

Japonic
Most scholars believe that Japonic was brought to northern Kyushu from the Korean Peninsula around 700 to 300 BCE by wet-rice farmers of the Yayoi culture, spreading from there throughout the Japanese Archipelago and somewhat later to the Ryukyu Islands.[27][28] There is fragmentary placename evidence that now-extinct Japonic languages were still spoken in central and southern parts of the Korean peninsula several centuries later.[29]
Koreanic
All modern Koreanic varieties are descended from the language of Unified Silla, which ruled the southern two-thirds of the Korean peninsula between the 7th and 10th centuries.[30][31] Evidence for the earlier linguistic history of the peninsula is extremely sparse.[32] The orthodox view among Korean social historians is that the Korean people migrated to the peninsula from the north, but no archaeological evidence of such a migration has been found.[33][34]
Sino-Tibetan
The reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than for other major families, so its higher-level structure and time depth remain unclear.[35] Proposed homelands and periods include: the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River about 4–8 kya, associated with the hypothesis of a top-level branching between Chinese and the rest (most likely); southwestern Sichuan around 9 kya, associated with the hypothesis that Chinese and Tibetan form a subbranch; Northeast India (the area of maximal diversity) 9–10 kya.[36]
Hmong–Mien
The most likely homeland of the Hmong–Mien languages is in Southern China between the Yangtze and Mekong rivers, but speakers of these languages may have migrated from Central China as a result of the expansion of the Han Chinese.[37]
Kra–Dai
Most scholars locate the homeland of the Kra–Dai languages in Southern China, possibly coastal Fujian or Guangdong.[38]
Austroasiatic
Austroasiatic is widely held to be the oldest family in mainland Southeast Asia, with its current discontinuous distribution resulting from the later arrival of other families. The various branches share a great deal of vocabulary concerning rice cultivation, but few related to metals.[39] Identification of the homeland of the family has been hampered by the lack of progress on its branching. The main proposals are Northern India (favoured by those who assume an early branching of Munda), Southeast Asia (the area of maximal diversity; most likely) and southern China (based on claimed loanwords in Chinese).[40]
Austronesian
The homeland of the Austronesian languages is widely accepted by linguists to be Taiwan, since nine of its ten branches are found there, with all Austronesian languages found outside Taiwan belonging to the remaining Malayo-Polynesian branch.[41]

North America

Eskimo–Aleut
The Eskimo–Aleut languages originated in the region of the Bering Strait or Southwest Alaska.[42]
Na-Dené and Yeniseian
The Dené–Yeniseian hypothesis proposes that the Na-Dené languages of North America and the Yeniseian languages of Central Siberia share a common ancestor. Suggested homelands for this family include Central or West Asia,[43] Siberia,[44] or Beringia,[45] but there is currently not enough evidence to resolve the question.[46]
Algic
The Algic languages are distributed from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of North America. It is suggested that Proto-Algic was spoken on the Columbia Plateau. From there, pre-Wiyot and pre-Yurok speakers moved southwest to the North Coast of California, while the pre-Proto-Algonquian speakers moved to the Great Plains, which was the center of dispersal of the Algonquian languages.[47][48]
Uto-Aztecan
Some authorities on the history of the Uto-Aztecan language family place the Proto-Uto-Aztecan homeland in the border region between the USA and Mexico, namely the upland regions of Arizona and New Mexico and the adjacent areas of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, roughly corresponding to the Sonoran Desert. The proto-language would have been spoken by foragers, about 5,000 years ago. Hill (2001) proposes instead a homeland further south, making the assumed speakers of Proto-Uto-Aztecan maize cultivators in Mesoamerica, who were gradually pushed north, bringing maize cultivation with them, during the period of roughly 4,500 to 3,000 years ago, the geographic diffusion of speakers corresponding to the breakup of linguistic unity.[49]

South America

Tupian
Proto-Tupian, the reconstructed common ancestor of the Tupian languages of South America, was probably spoken in the region between the Guaporé and Aripuanã rivers, around 5,000 years ago.[50]

Africa and Middle East

Afroasiatic
As Semitic is the only branch of Afroasiatic found outside Africa, northeast Africa is considered the most likely location of the Afroasiatic homeland. An alternative theory, based on lexical comparisons with Indo-European, proposes a Neolithic expansion from the Middle East.[51][52][53] Proto-Afroasiatic is estimated to have begun to break up in the 8th millennium BCE.[51] Proto-Semitic is thought to have been spoken in the Near East between 4400 and 7400 BCE, with Akkadian representing its earliest known branch.[54]
Niger–Congo
Although the membership and subgrouping of the Niger–Congo remains unsettled, the widely-accepted core of the group includes over 1000 languages spoken from West Africa through most of Southern Africa.[55] The homeland is thought to have been somewhere in the savanna belt of West Africa, with the Bantu expansion through the equatorial rainforests of Central Africa beginning around 3000 BCE.[56]
Mande
Valentin Vydrin concluded that "the Mande homeland at the second half of the 4th millennium BC was located in Southern Sahara, somewhere to the North of 16° or even 18° of Northern latitude and between 3° and 12° of Western longitude."[57] That is now Mauritania and/or southern Western Sahara.[58]
Nilo-Saharan
The validity of the Nilo-Saharan family remains controversial. Proponents of the family view the border area between Chad, Sudan, and the Central African Republic as a likely candidate for its homeland from around the start of the Holocene.[59]
Central-Sudanic
The original homeland of Central Sudanic speakers is likely somewhere in the Bahr el Ghazal region.[60]
Khoe-Kwadi
The homeland of Khoe-Kwadi was likely the middle Zambezi Valley over 2,000 years ago.[61]

Australia

Pama-Nyungan

The Gulf Plains, west of Queensland[62]

See also

References

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Sources