{"title":"The classification of the Transeurasian languages","authors":"Martine Robbeets","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198804628.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198804628.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Even if the hypothesis of Transeurasian affiliation is gradually gaining acceptance, supporters do not coincide on the internal structure of the family. Over the last century, a range of different classifications has been proposed. While these proposals show some remarkable overlap, the position of the Tungusic branch in the family tree remains a recurrent issue. Here the best supportable tree for the Transeurasian family is inferred, notably a binary topology with a Japano-Koreanic and an Altaic branch, in which Tungusic is the first to split off from the Altaic branch. To this end, the power of classical historical-comparative linguistics is combined with computational Bayesian phylogenetic methods. In this way, a quantitative basis is introduced to test various competing hypotheses with regard to the internal structure of the Transeurasian family and to solve uncertainties associated with the application of the classical historical-comparative method.","PeriodicalId":345262,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126024111","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}