Seres, Tocharians and phylolinguistics

van Driem, George (2020). Seres, Tocharians and phylolinguistics. In: Bichlmeier, Harald; Šefčík, Ondřej; Sukač, Roman (eds.) Etymologus: Festschrift for Václav Blazek. Studien zur historisch-vergleichenden Sprachwissenschaft: Vol. 14 (pp. 143-148). Hamburg: Baar Verlag

[img] Text
2020b.pdf - Published Version
Restricted to registered users only
Available under License Publisher holds Copyright.

Download (595kB)

The Tocharians were thus named because the ancient speakers of Turfanian and Kuchean
were misidentified with the historical Τόχαροι, but the misnomer has stuck. The question,
however, remains moot as to whether the Tocharians might have been the same people
as the Seres of the Silk Road. A misnomer need not be inadvertant but may be a deliberate part of an attempt at rebranding. The untold history of the origins and subsequent vagaries of lexicostatistics and glottochronology is particularly instructive in this regard. A recent attempt to rebrand this approach as “phylogenetics” has failed to alleviate the methodological problems afflicting this modus operandi, merely afforded temporary relief to its practitioners from the pressure to address persistent unresolved issues.

Item Type:

Book Section (Book Chapter)

Division/Institute:

06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of Linguistics

UniBE Contributor:

van Driem, George

Subjects:

400 Language > 410 Linguistics

ISSN:

2192-0133

ISBN:

978-3-935536-42-4

Series:

Studien zur historisch-vergleichenden Sprachwissenschaft

Publisher:

Baar Verlag

Language:

English

Submitter:

Sonja Latscha

Date Deposited:

02 Mar 2021 07:33

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:47

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/152198

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/152198

Actions (login required)

Edit item Edit item
Provide Feedback