Divergence-time estimation in Indo-European

Divergence-time estimation is one of the most important endeavors in historical linguistics. Its importance is matched only by its difficulty. As Bayesian methods of divergence-time estimation have become more common over the past two decades, a number of critical issues have come to the fore, including model sensitivity, the dependence of root-age estimates on uncertain interior-node ages, and the relationship between ancient languages and their modern counterparts. This study addresses these issues in an investigation of a particularly fraught case within Indo-European: the diversification of Latin into the Romance languages. The results of this study support a gradualist account of their formation that most likely began after 300  CE. They also bolster the view that Classical Latin is a sampled ancestor of the Romance languages (i.e., it lies along the branch leading to the Romance languages).

• Publication year

  2024

• Venue

  Diachronica

• Publication date

  2024-04-16

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1075/dia.22031.gol
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Language trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of Indo-European languages

  2023cited by this paper
• One statistical analysis must not rule them all

  2022cited by this paper
• Meaning and Purpose: Using Phylogenies to Investigate Human History and Cultural Evolution

  2022cited by this paper
• The Ghost of Vulgar Latin

  2022cited by this paper
• Phylogeographic analysis of the Bantu language expansion supports a rainforest route

  2022cited by this paper
• Integrating Fossil Observations Into Phylogenetics Using the Fossilized Birth–Death Model

  2022cited by this paper
• Cognacy Databases and Phylogenetic Research on Indo-European

  2021cited by this paper
• Diglossia

  2020cited by this paper
• Understanding the Tripartite Approach to Bayesian Divergence Time Estimation

  2020cited by this paper
• Inferring the Total-Evidence Timescale of Marattialean Fern Evolution in the Face of Model Sensitivity

  2020cited by this paper
• Bayesian phylolinguistics infers the internal structure and the time-depth of the Turkic language family

  2020cited by this paper
• Dated language phylogenies shed light on the ancestry of Sino-Tibetan

  2019cited by this paper
• Six Impossible Things before Breakfast: Assumptions, Models, and Belief in Molecular Dating.

  2019cited by this paper
• Influence of the tree prior and sampling scale on Bayesian phylogenetic estimates of the origin times of language families

  2019cited by this paper
• Vulgar Latin as an emergent concept in the Italian Renaissance (1435–1601): its ancient and medieval prehistory and its emergence and development in Renaissance linguistic thought

  2018cited by this paper
• The fossilized birth-death model for the analysis of stratigraphic range data under different speciation modes

  2018cited by this paper
• Computational historical linguistics

  2018cited by this paper
• Three tree priors and five datasets: A study of the effect of tree priors in Indo-European phylogenetics

  2018cited by this paper
• Areal pressure in grammatical evolution: An Indo-European case study

  2018cited by this paper
• Modeling linguistic evolution: a look under the hood

  2018cited by this paper
• New Perspectives on Indo-European Phylogeny and Chronology 1

  2018cited by this paper
• Phylogenetic Inference Using RevBayes

  2017cited by this paper
• Do Romanists need to reconstruct Proto-Romance?

  2016cited by this paper
• An Anthology of Informal Latin, 200 BC-AD 900: Fifty Texts with Translations and Linguistic Commentary

  2016cited by this paper
• The periodization of Latin: an old question revisited

  2015cited by this paper
• Ancestry-constrained phylogenetic analysis supports the Indo-European steppe hypothesis

  2015cited by this paper
• Bayesian Total-Evidence Dating Reveals the Recent Crown Radiation of Penguins

  2015cited by this paper
• L’étymologie de FAIM et de FAMINE revue dans le cadre du DÉRom

  2015cited by this paper
• Empirical foundations for a theory of language change

  2014cited by this paper
• The fossilized birth–death process for coherent calibration of divergence-time estimates

  2013cited by this paper
• A Total-Evidence Approach to Dating with Fossils, Applied to the Early Radiation of the Hymenoptera

  2012cited by this paper
• Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language Family

  2012cited by this paper
• Sampling-through-time in birth-death trees.

  2010cited by this paper
• Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic languages identifies an Early Bronze Age origin of Semitic in the Near East

  2009cited by this paper
• La naissance des langues romanes

  2008cited by this paper
• La déclinaison romane provient-elle du protorman ou du latin classique ?

  2008cited by this paper
• Dated ancestral trees from binary trait data and their application to the diversification of languages

  2007cited by this paper
• Latin vulgaire et latin archaïque

  2006cited by this paper
• Analysis and visualization of tree space.

  2005cited by this paper
• The spread of language around the pacific rim

  2005cited by this paper
• Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin

  2003cited by this paper
• Corrections and Clarifications

  2002cited by this paper
• A likelihood approach to estimating phylogeny from discrete morphological character data.

  2001cited by this paper
• 3. De Prague à Strasbourg :Phonétique et phonologie du français chez Georges Gougenheim et Georges Straka

  2001cited by this paper
• Language trees support the express-train sequence of Austronesian expansion

  2000cited by this paper
• Des langues romanes

  1999cited by this paper
• Le protoroman est-il une langue soeur du latin classique?

  1998cited by this paper
• Bayesian phylogenetic inference using DNA sequences: a Markov Chain Monte Carlo Method.

  1997cited by this paper
• Protoroman et origine des langues romanes

  1994cited by this paper
• Réactions diverses au problème de l'origine des langues romanes

  1994cited by this paper
• A simulation comparison of phylogeny algorithms under equal and unequal evolutionary rates.

  1994cited by this paper
• Proto-Romance and the Origin of the Romance Languages

  1994cited by this paper
• La langue romane commune: latin vulgaire ou latin classique?

  1974cited by this paper
• The Tongues of Italy

  1960cited by this paper
• The Reconstruction of Proto-Romance

  1950cited by this paper
• On the Generalized "Birth-and-Death" Process

  1948cited by this paper
• English

  1894cited by this paper
• LSU Digital Commons LSU Digital Commons

  year unknowncited by this paper
• Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology Publications Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology Revbayes: Bayesian Phylogenetic Inference Using Graphical Models and an Interactive Model- Specification Language Software for Systematics and Evolution Revbayes: Bayesian Phylogenetic Inference Using Gr

  year unknowncited by this paper
• Probleme der altromanischen Wortgeographie.

  year unknowncited by this paper

• Computer modelling of innovations relative to Latin in contemporary Romance dialects

  2025cites this paper
• Hierarchical Bayesian Cognacy Estimation with Uncertainty-Aware Divergence Dating for Sundanese and Indonesian

  2025cites this paper
• Addressing Polymorphism in Linguistic Phylogenetics

  2024cites this paper
• Frederik Hartmann: Germanic phylogeny

  2024cites this paper