来源：《新科学家》
原文刊登日期：2021年11月10日
本文适合2023考生
A vast Transeurasian language family that contains the Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Turkish and Tungusic languages has had its origins traced back 9000 years, to early farming communities in what is now north-east China.
一个庞大的泛欧亚语系，包括日语、朝鲜语、蒙古语、土耳其语和通古斯语，其起源可以追溯到9000年前，在今天的中国东北地区的早期农耕社区。
Transeurasian languages are spoken across a wide region of Europe and northern Asia. Until now, researchers assumed that they had spread from the mountains of Mongolia 3000 years ago, spoken by horse-riding nomads who kept livestock but didn’t farm crops.
泛欧亚语言在欧洲和北亚的广大地区使用。到目前为止，研究人员认为它们是3000年前从蒙古山区传播开来的，是由骑马的游牧民族说的，他们饲养牲畜，但不种植庄稼。
Martine Robbeets at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and her colleagues used linguistic, archaeological and genetic evidence to conclude instead that it was the start of millet cultivation by farmers in what is now China that led to the spread of the language family.
马克斯·普朗克人类历史科学研究所的Robbeets和她的同事利用语言学、考古学和遗传学证据得出结论，认为是农民开始在那时的中国东北种植小米，导致了这个语系的传播。
The team did this by studying the linguistic features of the languages and using computational analysis to map their spread through space and time based on their similarities to each other. Doing so allowed Robbeets and her team to trace the proto-Transeurasian language back to the Liao river area of north-east China around 9000 years ago. This is the exact time and place that millet is known to have been domesticated, according to archaeological evidence, says Robbeets.
研究小组通过研究这些语言的语言特征，并利用计算机分析，根据它们之间的相似性绘制出它们在空间和时间中的传播图。这样一来，Robbeets和她的团队就可以将原始的跨欧亚语言追溯至大约9000年前中国东北的辽河地区。Robbeets说，根据考古证据，这就是已知的小米被驯化的确切时间和地点。
By adding genetic information and carbon-dating millet grains, the team revealed that the proto-Transeurasian-speaking population split into separate communities that then started adopting early forms of Japanese, Korean and the Tungusic languages to the east of the original site, as well as early forms of Mongolic languages to the north and of Turkic languages to the west.
通过添加基因信息和碳年代测定小米谷粒，研究小组发现，原始的跨欧亚语系人口分裂成不同的群体，然后在原址以东开始采用早期形式的日语、韩语和通古斯语，在北部使用蒙古语的早期形式，在西部使用突厥语的早期形式。
“We have languages, archaeology and genetics which all have dates. So we just looked to see if they correlated,” says Robbeets.
“我们的语言、考古学和遗传学都有年代。所以我们只是看看它们是否相关，”Robbeets说。
Around 6500 years ago, the descendants of some of these farmers moved eastwards into Korea, where they learned to cultivate rice around 3300 years ago, spurring the movement of people from Korea to Japan.
大约6500年前，这些农民的后代向东迁移到朝鲜，大约3300年前，他们在那里学会了种植水稻，推动了从朝鲜到日本的人口流动。
“We all identify ourselves with language. It’s our identity. We often picture ourselves as one culture, one language, one genetic profile. Our study shows that like all populations, those in Asia are mixed,” says Robbeets.
Robbeets说：“我们自己与语言紧密相连。语言是我们的身份。我们经常把自己描绘成一种文化、一种语言、一种基因。我们的研究表明，与所有族群一样，亚洲的文化、语言、基因也是混合的”。
The researchers were also surprised to discover the first evidence that Neolithic Korean populations reproduced with Jōmon people, who were previously thought to have lived solely in Japan.
研究人员还惊讶地发现了新石器时代韩国人与绳纹人繁殖的第一个证据，此前人们认为绳纹人只生活在日本。
“This study highlights the richness of the narrative that can be developed when linguistic, archaeological and genetic data are all considered,” says Melinda Yang at the University of Richmond in Virginia.
弗吉尼亚州里士满大学的梅琳达·杨说：“这项研究强调了在语言、考古和基因数据都被考虑在内的情况下，叙事的丰富性。”