Prof. Balthasar Bickel talks about the family tree of languages at ETH Treffpunkt Science City
Balthasar Bickel spoke at the ETH’s outreach seminar series Treffpunkt Science City on 24 March 2024 on “The family tree of languages (Der Stammbaum der Sprachen)”, answering the questions of “Which languages are related?” and “How have languages spread across the globe?”.
Available in German.
"The family tree of languages": Balthasar Bickel at ETH Treffpunkt Science City
Abstract
Human language has spread across the earth together with Homo sapiens. There are around 7000 languages worldwide. How we speak is always changing. For example, Latin has evolved into Italian and French over the course of time. Where does language come from? How did it spread across the globe and how are the language families connected? With worldwide data on languages and genetics, it is now possible to successfully reconstruct their distribution. To what extent has our way of life influenced communication – for example, farming as opposed to hunting and gathering?
