Прародина протоязыка: методы и проблемы реконструкции.

Region in which a proto language was spoken
In historical linguistics, the homeland or Urheimat ('/ʊər//h//aɪ//m//ɑː//t/ OORhyemaht, from German ur "original" and Heimat, home) of a proto language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto language is the reconstructed or historically attested parent language of a group of languages that are genetically related. Depending on the age of the language family under consideration, its homeland may be known with near certainty (in the case of historical or near historical migrations) or it may be very uncertain (in the case of deep prehistory). Next to internal linguistic evidence, the reconstruction of a prehistoric homeland makes use of a variety of disciplines, including archaeology and archaeogenetics.

There are several methods to determine the homeland of a given language family. One method is based on the vocabulary that can be reconstructed for the proto language. This vocabulary – especially terms for flora and fauna – can provide clues for the geographical and ecological environment in which the proto language was spoken. An estimate for the time depth of the proto language is necessary in order to account for prehistorical changes in climate and the distribution of flora and fauna. Another method is based on the linguistic migration theory (first proposed by Edward Sapir), which states that the most likely candidate for the last homeland of a language family can be located in the area of its highest linguistic diversity. This presupposes an established view about the internal subgrouping of the language family. Different assumptions about high order subgrouping can thus lead to very divergent proposals for a linguistic homeland (e. g. Isidore Dyen's proposal for New Guinea as the center of dispersal of the Austronesian languages). The linguistic migration theory has its limits because it only works when linguistic diversity evolves continuously without major disruptions. Its results can be distorted e. g. when this diversity is wiped out by more recent migrations.

The concept of an Urheimat only applies to populations speaking a proto language defined by the tree model. This is not always the case. For example, in places where language families meet, the relationship between a group that speaks a language and the Urheimat for that language is complicated by "processes of migration, language shift and group absorption are documented by linguists and ethnographers" in groups that are themselves "transient and plastic." Thus, in the contact area in western Ethiopia between languages belonging to the Nilo Saharan and Afroasiatic families, the Nilo Saharan speaking Nyangatom and the Afroasiatic speaking Daasanach have been observed to be closely related to each other but genetically distinct from neighboring Afroasiatic speaking populations. This is a reflection of the fact that the Daasanach, like the Nyangatom, originally spoke a Nilo Saharan language, with the ancestral Daasanach later adopting an Afroasiatic language around the 19th century. Creole languages are hybrids of languages that are sometimes unrelated. Similarities arise from the creole formation process, rather than from genetic descent. For example, a creole language may lack significant inflectional morphology, lack tone on monosyllabic words, or lack semantically opaque word formation, even if these features are found in all of the parent languages of the languages from which the creole was formed.

Some languages are language isolates. That is to say, they have no well accepted language family connection, no nodes in a family tree, and therefore no known Urheimat. An example is the Basque language of Northern Spain and southwest France. Nevertheless, it is a scientific fact that all languages evolve. An unknown Urheimat may still be hypothesized, such as that for a Proto Basque, and may be supported by archaeological and historical evidence. Sometimes relatives are found for a language originally believed to be an isolate. An example is the Etruscan language, which, even though only partially understood, is believed to be related to the Rhaetic language and to the Lemnian language. A single family may be an isolate. In the case of the non Austronesian indigenous languages of Papua New Guinea and the indigenous languages of Australia, there is no published linguistic hypothesis supported by any evidence that these languages have links to any other families. Nevertheless, an unknown Urheimat is implied. The entire Indo European family itself is a language isolate: no further connections are known. This lack of information does not prevent some professional linguists from formulating additional hypothetical nodes (Nostratic) and additional homelands for the speakers.