Luigi Luca Cavalli Sforza and the history of human languages: A linguist’s point of view

Abstract

L.L. Cavalli Sforza had the great merit of transposing the methods and concepts of a modern natural science, human genetics, into historical research; after this model, it is now possible to transfer the research style and results of another growing discipline, cognitive biolinguistics, to the field of history. It is along this new line that it becomes finally possible to formally pursue Cavalli Sforza’s enterprise of assessing the degree of congruence between genetic and linguistic diversification of human populations.