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URL: http://fluxus-technology.com/sharenet.htm

Proper Citation: Fluxus (RRID:SCR_008517)

Description: DNA software and consultancy: The DNA Alignment software and Network software is used by biologists, anthropologists, medical researchers and students world wide. We carry out phylogeographic consultancy for US, UK and German clients, including legal medical work. We were involved in the tv projects The Real Eve (Discovery Channel) and Motherland (BBC). Our biotechnological director Dr Peter Forster is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Legal Medicine since 1999. Technology and sales consultancy: Clients include multinational corporations, research institutions, and medium to small businesses. Client quotes: Vorbildlicher Einsatz (Dr Stephan Hitzel, EADS, in CADplus 1/2003 journal, Cover Story). We have had an effective business relationship with Fluxus Technology since 1999, and their experience of the German market has proved to be invaluable as part of our operations supplying high end engineering software and consultancy services right across the engineering supply chain (Andy Chinn, Business Development Manager, ITI TranscenData, February 2006). Abstract. Indo-European is the largest and best-documented language family in the world, yet the reconstruction of the Indo-European tree, first proposed in 1863, has remained controversial. Complications may include ascertainment bias when choosing the linguistic data, and disregard for the wave model of 1872 when attempting to reconstruct the tree. Essentially analogous problems were solved in evolutionary genetics by DNA sequencing and phylogenetic network methods, respectively. We now adapt these tools to linguistics, and analyze Indo-European language data, focusing on Celtic and in particular on the ancient Celtic language of Gaul (modern France), by using bilingual GaulishLatin inscriptions. Our phylogenetic network reveals an early split of Celtic within Indo-European. Interestingly, the next branching event separates Gaulish (Continental Celtic) from the British (Insular Celtic) languages, with Insular Celtic subsequently splitting into Brythonic (Welsh, Breton) and Goidelic (Irish and Scottish Gaelic). Taken together, the network thus suggests that the Celtic language arrived in the British Isles as a single wave (and then differentiated locally), rather than in the traditional two-wave scenario (P-Celtic to Britain and Q-Celtic to Ireland). The phylogenetic network furthermore permits the estimation of time in analogy to genetics, and we obtain tentative dates for Indo-European at 8100 BC 1,900 years, and for the arrival of Celtic in Britain at 3200 BC 1,500 years. The phylogenetic method is easily executed by hand and promises to be an informative approach for many problems in historical linguistics.

Synonyms: Fluxus

Resource Type: software resource