Talk:Linguistic homeland

Split the article

There are too many sections to read comfortably and find discussions of urheimats in general. Could we please break off the sections for each language family into their own articles and link them, leaving this page to discuss Urheimats in general and how they're discovered? --Daviddwd (talk) 03:35, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Seconded. The Verified Cactus 100% 19:44, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Definition of Sudan for Nilo-Saharan

In the first paragraph on Nilo-Saharan:

archaeological evidence and linguistic studies that argue for a Nilo-Saharan homeland in eastern Sudan before 6000 BCE, with subsequent migration events northward to the eastern Sahara, westward to the Chad Basin, and southeastward into Kenya and Tanzania.

The link goes to the country Sudan. The question is whether it needs to go to Sudan (region).

I don't have ready access to the cited work that would clarify the meaning:

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

But from the directions given for the migrations, it may be inferred that Campbell & Tishkoff are really talking about eastern Sudan (region). The area of the border between Chad and Sudan: Ouaddaï–Wadi Fira–West Darfur. From there, the Libyan Desert, i.e. eastern Sahara, lies north; the Chad Basin is to the west; and Kenya and Tanzania lie southeast of there. Eastern Sudan the country doesn't fit as well. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 22:01, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, I found the Campbell & Tishkoff online: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945812/ — They clearly site the Nilo-Saharan Urheimat along the border between Sudan and South Sudan, on the east side of both countries.

So I guessed wrong and they really did mean Sudan the country. Carry on. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 01:00, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

The states they indicate include Upper Nile in South Sudan and Blue Nile in Sudan. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 16:42, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Has "homeland" become more common than "Urheimat"?

Urheimat is fairly jargon-ish and as far as I can see the term "homeland" is more widely used. Since 2010 there are 6,000 Google Scholar results for homeland + language family [1] but only 320 for Urheimat + language family [2]. Would it be worth discussing a move to "Language family homeland" or something similar? – Thjarkur (talk) 13:36, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

• Agree, I think discussing a page move will have more merit that discussing a page deletion. I've never given this a thought, because "urheimat" is just as familiar to me as "homeland" (and less ambiguous—especially since 2002), but you definitely have a good point, especially given the Google Scholar result. At least in my field, Robert Blust, Andrew Pawley, Malcolm Ross always use "Austronesian homeland", "Oceanic homeland" etc. As for the new title: since the term in linguistics and related disciplines is plain "homeland", we could use "Homeland (some disambiguator)". –Austronesier (talk) 14:33, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
• I wondered this too. It's hard to get a sense of what is more common from Google, because "homeland" is so generic and "Urheimat" also gives a lot of German results. I would at least say that "homeland" is the more accessible name for English speakers. We moved Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses to Proto-Indo-European homeland some time ago and I think that was an improvement. If we do decide to move, I'd suggest linguistic homeland as a natural disambiguation which is relatively widely used. – Joe (talk) 14:55, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree, the natural disambiguation Linguistic homeland is available and looks good. Btw, can we add such a title in the dab-page Homeland (disambiguation), or does this run against WP:PARTIAL? –Austronesier (talk) 12:42, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
    • Have added it. – Thjarkur (talk) 14:04, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 16 November 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. Consensus above, so let's just go ahead. – Joe (talk) 15:46, 16 November 2020 (UTC) – Joe (talk) 15:46, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

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Urheimat → Linguistic homeland – As above, "homeland" is more commonly used and is more recognizable/accessible to the general reader. – Thjarkur (talk) 14:04, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

• Support, per nom and discussion in the preceding section. –Austronesier (talk) 14:08, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

List of homelands

Following a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics#Linguistic homeland, Austronesier and I have started trimming the sections on the homelands of individual language families. The idea is to split or merge most verifiable material to either standalone articles like Proto-Indo-European homeland or sections of the article on the relevant language family, leaving this article with a concise list and/or a link to a separate list of linguistic homelands (Wugapodes' suggestion). – Joe (talk) 11:04, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree that there's a lot of speculative fluff that should be cut here, but I don't see how a list could work, as most of these homelands are uncertain, and properly reflecting uncertainty means text. Some of the more solidly supported homelands have been cut too much. Some of them, e.g. Indo-European and Austronesian, could provide useful illustrations of sound methodology.

What might help more would be a prohibition on citing primary research.

It would be useful to have a short paragraph or two on each family, focussing on what is widely accepted, or at least widely considered. In many cases it's worth noting that a more restricted range is historically documented.

Also, the "Limitations of the concept" section seems to be more concerned with the difficulties in proving relationships between accepted families than with homelands. Kanguole 12:12, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

I think the list format works pretty well? It gives the reader a brief summary style of what is known about the origin of particular language families, and links to articles with more detailed information where available. The problem including more than a few sentences is that, according to Glottolog for example, there are 244 "top-level families" which are theoretically within the scope of such a list (not to mention the "homelands" of many sub-families are also notable). Devoting paragraphs to each of those would be unmanageable, and even the small subset that was included before made the article too long (see repeated requests to split above).

Either way, the material Austronesier and I have cut was all poorly-referenced, incomplete or out-of-date, and in most cases flat-out wrong. So if we were to expand back to larger summaries, it would have to be from scratch based on better sources. What was verifiable has been moved to other articles. – Joe (talk) 12:54, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, "Limitations of the concept" is only peripherally related to the topic of the article, which is why I have started a still very sketchy "Methods" section, in order to have some flesh before trimming or scrapping "Limitations of the concept".

I am also very much in favor of a minimalist list of hard facts about homeland proposals for individual language families. Complexities should be addressed in the main articles, every attempt to go into details here will bring the risk of content forking. Uncertainty could be handled by giving the maximal geographical range of extant meaningful proposals. E.g. for Uralic, we could restrict ourselves to state that the homeland lay somewhere in northern Eurasia (because that's where all sensible proposals locate it, with a wide range of potential longitudes). –Austronesier (talk) 12:09, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Missing homelands

With the longer sections trimmed, we can see that the list in #Homelands of major language families is very incomplete. Here's a to-do list of what we're missing, based on the "top-level families" listed by Glottolog:

Africa

• Afro-Asiatic
• Atlantic-Congo (Niger–Congo)
• Blue Nile Mao
• Central Sudanic
• Dajuic
• Dizoid
• Dogon
• Eastern Jebel
• Furan
• Gumuz
• Heibanic
• Ijoid
• Kadugli-Krongo
• Katla-Tima
• Khoe-Kwadi
• Koman
• Kresh-Aja
• Kuliak
• Kxa
• Maban
• Mande
• Narrow Talodi
• Nilotic
• Nubian
• Nyimang
• Rashad
• Saharan
• Songhay
• South Omotic
• Surmic
• Ta-Ne-Omotic
• Tamaic
• Temeinic
• Tuu

Australia

• Bunaban
• Eastern Daly
• Garrwan
• Giimbiyu
• Gunwinyguan
• Iwaidjan Proper
• Jarrakan
• Limilngan-Wulna
• Mangarrayi-Maran
• Maningrida
• Marrku-Wurrugu
• Mirndi
• North-Eastern Tasmanian
• Northern Daly
• Nyulnyulan
• Pama-Nyungan
• South-Eastern Tasmanian
• Southern Daly
• Tangkic
• Western Daly
• Western Tasmanian
• Worrorran
• Yangmanic

Eurasia

• Abkhaz-Adyge
• Ainu
• Austroasiatic
• Chukotko-Kamchatkan
• Dravidian
• Great Andamanese
• Hmong-Mien
• Hurro-Urartian (minor)
• Indo-European
• Japonic
• Jarawa-Onge
• Kartvelian
• Koreanic
• Mongolic-Khitan
• Nakh-Daghestanian
• Nivkh
• Sino-Tibetan
• Tai-Kadai (Kra–Dai)
• Tungusic
• Turkic
• Uralic
• Yeniseian
• Yukaghir

Oceania (Papunesia)

• Amto-Musan
• Austronesian
• Angan
• Anim
• Arafundi
• Baibai-Fas
• Baining
• Bayono-Awbono
• Bogia
• Border
• Bosavi
• Bulaka River
• Dagan
• Doso-Turumsa
• East Bird's Head
• East Kutubu
• East Strickland
• Eastern Trans-Fly
• Eleman
• Geelvink Bay
• Goilalan
• Greater Kwerba
• Hatam-Mansim
• Inanwatan
• Kamula-Elevala
• Kaure-Kosare
• Kayagaric
• Keram
• Kiwaian
• Koiarian
• Kolopom
• Konda-Yahadian
• Kwalean
• Kwomtari-Nai
• Lakes Plain
• Left May
• Lepki-Murkim-Kembra
• Lower Sepik-Ramu
• Mailuan
• Mairasic
• Manubaran
• Mombum-Koneraw
• Namla-Tofanma
• Ndu
• Nimboranic
• North Bougainville
• North Halmahera
• Nuclear Torricelli
• Nuclear Trans New Guinea
• Pahoturi
• Pauwasi
• Piawi
• Senagi
• Sentanic
• Sepik
• Sko
• Somahai
• South Bird's Head Family
• South Bougainville
• Suki-Gogodala
• Taulil-Butam
• Teberan
• Timor-Alor-Pantar
• Tor-Orya
• Turama-Kikori
• Walioic
• West Bird's Head
• West Bomberai
• Yam
• Yareban
• Yawa-Saweru
• Yuat

North America

• Algic
• Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit (Na Dene)
• Caddoan
• Chimakuan
• Chinookan
• Chumashan
• Cochimi-Yuman
• Coosan (minor)
• Eskimo-Aleut
• Haida
• Huavean
• Iroquoian
• Jicaquean
• Kalapuyan
• Keresan
• Kiowa-Tanoan
• Lencan
• Maiduan
• Mayan
• Misumalpan
• Miwok-Costanoan
• Mixe-Zoque
• Muskogean
• Otomanguean
• Palaihnihan (minor)
• Pomoan (minor)
• Sahaptian
• Salishan
• Shastan (minor)
• Siouan
• Tarascan
• Tequistlatecan
• Totonacan
• Tsimshian
• Uto-Aztecan
• Wakashan
• Wintuan
• Xincan
• Yokutsan
• Yuki-Wappo

South America

• Araucanian
• Arawakan
• Arawan
• Aymaran
• Barbacoan
• Boran
• Bororoan
• Cahuapanan
• Cariban
• Chapacuran
• Charruan
• Chibchan
• Chicham
• Chiquitano
• Chocoan
• Chonan
• Guahiboan
• Guaicuruan
• Harakmbut
• Hibito-Cholon
• Huarpean
• Huitotoan
• Jodi-Saliban
• Kakua-Nukak
• Kamakanan
• Katukinan
• Kawesqar
• Lengua-Mascoy
• Matacoan
• Naduhup
• Nambiquaran
• Nuclear-Macro-Je
• Otomaco-Taparita
• Pano-Tacanan
• Peba-Yagua
• Puri-Coroado
• Quechuan
• Ticuna-Yuri
• Tucanoan
• Tupian
• Uru-Chipaya
• Yanomamic
• Zamucoan
• Zaparoan

The section is headed "major language families" (following the map in language family) so perhaps we won't want to include all or most of these, though I'm not sure what exactly 'major' means in this context. – Joe (talk) 09:12, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• Coosan, a family which I am quite familiar with, comprises two extinct languages spoken in the same area (Coos Bay, Oregon) with uncertain external affiliations (Coast Oregon Penutian? Or even Penutian?). This is a clear case of 'minor', which we can exclude here. (Struck out and tagged as 'minor' – I will proceed with similar cases, feel free to revert me if you disagree). –Austronesier (talk) 09:48, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
• I don't think the Glottolog list is a useful starting point. The vast majority of these are by no means "major", and there's probably not an interesting homeland question for a small family spoken in a compact area. Kanguole 12:40, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Do you know of a good, sourced definition of what constitutes a "major" family that we could work off? – Joe (talk) 13:39, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Comrie The World's Major Languages has headings for

Afroasiatic, Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Dravidian, Indo-European, Japonic, Koreanic, Kra-Dai, Niger-Congo, Sino-Tibetan, Turkic, Uralic

which would be an uncontroversial list for the Old World. Kanguole 14:57, 1 December 2020 (UTC)