{"product_id":"9781902937205","title":"Examining the Farming\/Language Dispersal Hypothesis by A.Colin Renfrew","description":"Linguistic diversity is one of the most puzzling and  challenging features of humankind. Why are there some six  thousand different languages spoken in the world today? Why are  some, like Chinese or English, spoken by millions over vast  territories, while others are restricted to just a few thousand  speakers in a limited area? The farming\/language dispersal  hypothesis makes the radical and controversial proposal that the  present-day distributions of many of the world's languages and  language families can be traced back to the early developments  and dispersals of farming from the several nuclear areas where  animal and plant domestication emerged. For instance, the  Indo-European and Austronesian language families may owe their  current vast distributions to the spread of food plants and of  farmers (speaking the relevant proto-language) following the  Neolithic revolutions which took place in the Near East and in  Eastern Asia respectively, thousands of years ago. In this  challenging book, international experts in historical  linguistics, prehistoric archaeology, molecular genetics and  human ecology bring their specialisms to bear upon this  intractable problem, using a range of interdisciplinary  approaches. There are signs that a new synthesis between these  fields may now be emerging. This path-breaking volume opens new  perspectives and indicates some of the directions which future  research is likely to follow.\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Hardback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308790133109,"sku":"9781902937205","price":50.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781902937205.jpg?v=1762809121","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9781902937205","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}