Before 15,000 BCE: (The Principle of Fewest Moves as Ockham’s Razor Applied to Language Origins — The Most Probable History Being the One Requiring the Fewes…

Before 15,000 BCE: (The Principle of Fewest Moves as Ockham’s Razor Applied to Language Origins — The Most Probable History Being the One Requiring the Fewest and Most Straightforward Expansions of Speakers into New Lands, the Same Analytical Principle in Lively Use Among Geneticists Tracking Human Origins, and the Complementary Principle of Greatest Diversity Placing the Homeland Where the Deepest Branches Cluster Geographically): The principle of fewest moves is an application of Ockham’s razor to the history of language spread: the reconstruction that requires the fewest and most straightforward expansions of speakers into new lands is the most probable history. This analytical principle is in very lively use these days among geneticists tracking the genetic origins and spreads of humankind and of particular genes. Similarly, if there is a region where the deepest branches of the language family cluster close to each other geographically, that will be the region where languages of the family have longest been spoken. The two principles — fewest moves and greatest diversity — commonly support each other in their implications about language origins. This is not a method invented for the convenience of Africanist scholars. It is the standard tool of historical linguistics worldwide, the same tool used to locate the Indo-European homeland in the Pontic steppe and the Austronesian homeland in Taiwan. When applied to Afrasian with the same rigor, it produces an African homeland. The methodology does not change because the result is inconvenient for the Eurocentric narrative. The razor cuts the same way regardless of which continent it points to.