《自然》發布研究：日語、韓語或都發源于中國東北
本文轉自【中國日報】；“宇宙的盡頭是 （東北）鐵嶺”，這是段曾廣為流傳的網絡段子，充滿幽默成分，但中國東北真的攤上“人類大事”了。它肯定不是宇宙的盡頭，但可能是數億人說的語言的源頭！
根據路透社報道，一項綜合了語言、基因和考古學證據的研究發現，包括現代日語、韓語、土耳其語和蒙古語等同一語系的語言以及說這些語言的人，都起源于大約 9000 年前生活在中國東北地區種植谷子的古代農民。
A study combining linguistic, genetic and archaeological evidence has traced the origins of the family of languages including modern Japanese, Korean, Turkish and Mongolian and the people who speak them to millet farmers who inhabited a region in northeastern China about 9,000 years ago.
據《南華早報》報道，這份由來自英國、中國、捷克、法國、德國、日本、新西蘭、韓國、俄羅斯、荷蘭和美國的研究人員聯合公布的研究，于11月10日發布在了《自然》期刊上。
The researchers from Britain, China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia, the Netherlands and the United States published their findings in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
《南華早報》報道稱，形成泛歐亞語系的五個群體——日本人、朝鮮人、通古斯人、蒙古人和突厥人的起源和共同程度，長期以來一直是學者爭論的領域。該論文團隊表示，最近的研究“已經顯示出可靠的核心證據”，支持他們源自一個共同祖先的理論。
The origins and degree to which the five groups that make up the Transeurasian family are related has long been an area of contention among scholars, but the team said that recent studies “have shown a reliable core of evidence” supporting the theory that they emerged from a common ancestor.
研究人員表示，代表著泛歐亞語系98種語言的250種詞匯概念的數據組顯示，這一語系的源頭可以追溯到9181年前住在西遼河流域的種植谷子的農民。
The researchers said a data set representing more than 250 vocabulary concepts in 98 languages showed the roots of the language family reaching back 9,181 years to millet farmers living in the region of the West Liao River.
路透社報道稱，泛歐亞語系總共有98種語言，包括韓語、日語、各類突厥語系（包括在歐洲、安納托利亞、中亞和西伯利亞部分地區的土耳其語）、各類蒙古語系以及分布在滿洲和西伯利亞的通古斯語系。
There are 98 Transeurasian languages. Among these are Korean and Japanese as well as: various Turkic languages including Turkish in parts of Europe, Anatolia, Central Asia and Siberia; various Mongolic languages including Mongolian in Central and Northeast Asia; and various Tungusic languages in Manchuria and Siberia.
這個語系的源頭可以追溯到新石器時代位于中國遼寧、吉林和內蒙三地的遼河谷種植谷子的農民。隨著這些農民遷移到東北亞，其后代語言在數千年的時間里，就隨之向北和西傳播到了西伯利亞和大草原，也向東傳播到朝鮮半島并跨過海洋到達日本群島。
This language family's beginnings were traced to Neolithic millet farmers in the Liao River valley, an area encompassing parts of the Chinese provinces of Liaoning and Jilin and the region of Inner Mongolia. As these farmers moved across northeastern Asia, the descendant languages spread north and west into Siberia and the steppes and east into the Korean peninsula and over the sea to the Japanese archipelago over thousands of years.
該研究的聯合作者之一考古學家馬克·哈德遜（Mark Hudson）表示，研究人員檢查了來自中國、日本、朝鮮半島和俄羅斯遠東地區的255個考古遺址的數據，從包括陶器、石制工具、種植物和動物遺骸的人工制品中總結出相似性。他們還把各個遺址各時期的269種古代農作物殘留物也考慮在內了。
這份研究的主要作者馬丁·羅貝茲（Martine Robbeets）坦言：“接受自己的語言、文化和祖先來自現有的國家邊界之外，是一種身份的屈服，這讓一些人還沒準備好。”
Accepting that the roots of one's language, culture or people lie beyond the present national boundaries is a kind of surrender of identity, which some people are not yet prepared to make," said comparative linguist Martine Robbeets, leader of the Archaeolinguistic Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.
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