Revising the Bantu tree

Abstract

Phylogenetic methods offer a promising advance for the historical study of language and cultural relationships. Applications to date, however, have been hampered by traditional approaches dependent on unfalsifiable authority statements: in this regard, historical linguistics remains in a similar position to evolutionary biology prior to the cladistic revolution. Influential phylogenetic studies of Bantu languages over the last two decades, which provide the foundation for multiple analyses of Bantu sociocultural histories, are a major case in point. Comparative analyses of basic lexica, instead of directly treating written words, use only numerical symbols that express non‐replicable authority opinion about underlying relationships. Building on a previous study of Uto‐Aztecan, here we analyse Bantu language relationships with methods deriving from DNA sequence optimization algorithms, treating basic vocabulary as sequences of sounds. This yields finer‐grained results that indicate major revisions to the Bantu tree, and enables more robust inferences about the history of Bantu language expansion and/or migration throughout sub‐Saharan Africa. “Early‐split” versus “late‐split” hypotheses for East and West Bantu are tested, and overall results are compared to trees based on numerical reductions of vocabulary data. Reconstruction of language histories is more empirically based and robust than with previous methods.

Phylogenetic supergraphs

“…The Bantu language data set is a series of word lists (92) containing sound sequences (see Wheeler and Whiteley, 2015 for further explanation). Whiteley et al (2019) gathered these data to examine historical migration patterns, hence looked for common signals among the data. Languages, however, may also borrow from each other, leading to alternate patterns of word history.…”

“…Whiteley et al. (2019) gathered these data to examine historical migration patterns, hence looked for common signals among the data. Languages, however, may also borrow from each other, leading to alternate patterns of word history.…”

Reply

“…This means relying significantly more on Lyle Campbell and much less on Joseph Greenberg, on Johanna Nichols and not as much on Merritt Ruhlen, etc. Trautmann & Whiteley cite Whiteley et al 2019, a fine piece of work offering a different approach to the internal Bantu phylogenetic tree. However, it also shows that the authors' belief in the "pre-scientific methodology" and the presumed subjectivity of historical linguistic methods comes from reading Joseph Greenberg whose unorthodox approach to language classification generated much controversy in the 1990s only to be dismissed by nearly all Amerindianists and to be heavily redacted by Africanists.…”

Comment on German Dziebel

“…As countless studies have shown, opposite conclusions in historical linguistics have frequently been generated from similar data under different premises. Largely driven by authority statements rather than falsifiable hypotheses, much historical linguistics remains stuck in a pre-scientific paradigm (Whiteley et al 2019). How an account drawn from purportedly identifiable patterns of language change over, say, a 10,000-year period can be aligned with identified genetic processes among ethnolinguistic demes, and sibling-terminology histories retrojected as coordinate within language families, seems very far-fetched.…”