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    The Forgotten Mid-Vowels: Reconstructing the History of the Proto-Pano Vowel System
    (Lakehead University, 2026-01-15)
    This study critically reexamines the Proto-Pano phonological inventory, challenging the prevailing view that it contained only four oral vowels. Through a comparative analysis of 22 contemporary Pano languages, we reconstruct a Proto-Pano system that includes two additional mid vowels, thus proposing a six-vowel inventory. This finding diverges from all previous Pano reconstructions, which lacked a careful consideration of the historically significant differences between mid vowels in Northern Pano languages, and Kakataibo and Kashararí. We argue that mid vowels in these languages represent both conservative and innovative traits within the family, questioning the assumption that all Pano mid vowels are innovative. Our analysis highlights the roles of merger and split processes in shaping Pano phonological diversity, suggesting that a six-vowel reconstruction better accounts for the comparative data and that Pano mid vowels have origins that are diverse and divergent. This revised framework provides new insights into the historical evolution and internal classification of the Pano language family.
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    Language Lessons on the Prehistory of South America
    (Oxford University Press, 2026-05-21)
    Linguistics holds rich potential to inform our understanding of South American prehistory. We set out the various dimensions of the linguistic panorama: patterns in language diversity, the expansions and divergence of great language families, and contact and convergence between languages of independent origins. We survey the methodological toolkit by which language comparisons on each level can shed light on their speakers' pasts. We assess also how best to link up this linguistic record with archaeology and genetics, through correlations in the where, when, and why of prehistory. We look at geographical distributions and seek the homelands out of which each major language family began its expansion. We look at chronology and the different time-depths of those families. And we look at what causation might best explain how each great family came to exist at all, and spread so spectacularly, while other regions harbor acute language diversity. We assess big-picture patterns and contrasts between the Andean highlands and the eastern lowlands, particularly Amazonia. Amid a host of smaller families and unique language isolates, we briefly survey the origins and prehistories of the main individual language families within each macroregion: Quechua, Aymara, Chibchan, and Mapudungun; Arawak, Tupí, Carib, and Jê. Separately, we consider the various forms, intensities, and outcomes of contact and convergence among the speakers of these languages over time. Throughout, we assess what all this means for prehistory: how to read these linguistic signals in concert with archaeology and genetics for a more holistic prehistory of Indigenous South America.
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