Climate change and the spread of the Transeurasian languages

Abstract

The term “Transeurasian” refers to a proposed language family stretching across Europe and northern Asia, which includes five well-established branches: Japonic, Koreanic, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic. The complex range of interacting factors that drove the spread of these languages from their homeland in Northeast Asia to their present-day locations is yet to be understood. Here, we investigate the potential impacts of climate change on the spread of the Transeurasian languages across mid-latitude East Asia during the Holocene, beginning from the initial break-up of the Transeurasian language family about 9200 years ago. Comparison of palaeoclimate records and linguistic developments demonstrates that global- to regional-scale climate trends may have been factors that promoted the spread of these languages.