%0 Journal Article %A Koile, Ezequiel %A Chechuro, Ilia %A Moroz, George %A Daniel, Michael %+ Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society %T Geography and language divergence: The case of Andic languages : %G eng %U https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000A-7CBA-A %R 10.1371/journal.pone.0265460 %7 2022-05-26 %D 2022 %8 26.05.2022 %* Review method: peer-reviewed %X We study the correlation between phylogenetic and geographic distances for the languages of
the Andic branch of the East Caucasian (Nakh-Daghestanian) language family. For several
alternative phylogenies, we find that geographic distances correlate with linguistic divergence.
Notably, qualitative classifications show a better fit with geography than cognacy-based
phylogenies. We interpret this result as follows: The better fit may be due to implicit geographic
bias in qualitative classifications. We conclude that approaches to classification other than those
based on cognacy run a risk to implicitly include geography and geography-related factors as one basis of genealogical classifications. %J PLoS One %V 17 %N 5 %] e0265460 %I Public Library of Science %C San Francisco, CA %@ 1932-6203 %U https://osf.io/x6frv/