26.2286, Books: The Indo-European Controversy: Pereltsvaig, Lewis
The LINGUIST List via LINGUIST
linguist at listserv.linguistlist.org
Fri May 1 22:06:49 UTC 2015
LINGUIST List: Vol-26-2286. Fri May 01 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 26.2286, Books: The Indo-European Controversy: Pereltsvaig, Lewis
Moderators: linguist at linguistlist.org (Damir Cavar, Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Anthony Aristar, Helen Aristar-Dry, Sara Couture)
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org
************* LINGUIST List 2015 Fund Drive *************
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/
Editor for this issue: Sara Couture <sara at linguistlist.org>
================================================================
Date: Fri, 01 May 2015 18:06:39
From: Katie Laker [klaker at cambridge.org]
Subject: The Indo-European Controversy: Pereltsvaig, Lewis
Title: The Indo-European Controversy
Subtitle: Facts and Fallacies in Historical Linguistics
Publication Year: 2015
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
http://cambridge.org
Book URL: http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/historical-linguistics/indo-european-controversy-facts-and-fallacies-historical-linguistics?format=HB
Author: Asya Pereltsvaig
Author: Martin W. Lewis
Hardback: ISBN: 9781107054530 Pages: Price: U.S. $ 99.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9781107054530 Pages: Price: U.K. £ 65.00
Abstract:
Over the past decade, a group of prolific and innovative evolutionary biologists has sought to reinvent historical linguistics through the use of phylogenetic and phylogeographical analysis, treating cognates like genes and conceptualizing the spread of languages in terms of the diffusion of viruses. Using these techniques, researchers claim to have located the origin of the Indo-European language family in Neolithic Anatolia, challenging the near-consensus view that it emerged in the grasslands north of the Black Sea thousands of years later. But despite its widespread celebration in the global media, this new approach fails to withstand scrutiny. As languages do not evolve like biological species and do not spread like viruses, the model produces incoherent results, contradicted by the empirical record at every turn. This book asserts that the origin and spread of languages must be examined primarily through the time-tested techniques of linguistic analysis, rather than those of ev
olutionary biology.
Introduction: the Indo-European debate and why it matters; Part I. The Vexatious History of Indo-European Studies: 1. Ideology and interpretation from the 1700s to the 1970s; 2. Anatolia vs. the Steppes; Part II. The Failings of the Bayesian Phylogenetic Research Program: 3. What theory we want and what theory we get; 4. Linguistic fallacies of the Bayesian phylogenetic model; 5. Dating problems of the Bayesian phylogenetic model; 6. The historical-geographical failure of the Bayesian phylogenetic model; 7. Unwarranted assumptions; Part III. Searching for Indo-European Origins: 8. Why linguists don't do dates? Or do they? 9. Triangulating the Indo-European homeland; 10. The non-mystery of Indo-European expansion; 11. Whither historical linguistics? Conclusion: what is at stake in the Indo-European debate.
Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics
Historical Linguistics
Language Family(ies): Indo-European
Written In: English (eng)
See this book announcement on our website:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=84873
PUBLISHING PARTNER
Cambridge University Press
http://us.cambridge.org
MAJOR SUPPORTING PUBLISHERS
Akademie Verlag GmbH
http://www.oldenbourg-verlag.de/akademie-verlag
Bloomsbury Linguistics (formerly Continuum Linguistics)
http://www.bloomsbury.com
Brill
http://www.brill.nl
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
http://www.c-s-p.org
Cascadilla Press
http://www.cascadilla.com/
Classiques Garnier
http://www.classiques-garnier.com/
De Gruyter Mouton
http://www.degruyter.com/
Edinburgh University Press
http://www.euppublishing.com
Elsevier Ltd
http://www.elsevier.com/
Equinox Publishing Ltd
http://www.equinoxpub.com/
European Language Resources Association (ELRA)
http://www.elra.info/
Georgetown University Press
http://www.press.georgetown.edu/
John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/
Lincom GmbH
http://www.lincom-shop.eu/
MIT Press
http://mitpress.mit.edu/
Multilingual Matters
http://www.multilingual-matters.com/
Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG
http://www.narr.de/
Oxford University Press
oup.com/us
Palgrave Macmillan
http://www.palgrave.com/
Peter Lang AG
http://www.peterlang.com/
Rodopi
http://www.rodopi.nl/
Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
http://www.routledge.com/
Springer
http://www.springer.com/
University of Toronto Press
http://www.utpjournals.com/
Wiley-Blackwell
http://www.wiley.com/
OTHER SUPPORTING PUBLISHERS
Association of Editors of the Journal of Portuguese Linguistics
http://www.fl.ul.pt/revistas/JPL/JPLweb.htm
International Pragmatics Assoc.
http://ipra.ua.ac.be/
Linguistic Association of Finland
http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/
Morgan & Claypool Publishers
http://www.morganclaypool.com/
Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke (LOT)
http://www.lotpublications.nl/
Seoul National University
http://j-cs.org/index/index.php
SIL International Publications
http://www.sil.org/resources/publications
Universitat Jaume I
http://www.uji.es/CA/publ/
University of Nebraska Press
http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/
Utrecht institute of Linguistics
http://www-uilots.let.uu.nl/
----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-26-2286
----------------------------------------------------------
Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
http://multitree.org/
More information about the LINGUIST
mailing list