Cladistic Parsimony, Historical Linguistics and Cultural Phylogenetics

Here, I consider the recent application of phylogenetic methods in historical linguistics. After a preliminary survey of one such method, i.e. cladistic parsimony, I respond to two common criticisms of cultural phylogenies: (1) that cultural artifacts cannot be modeled as tree‐like because of borrowing across lineages, and (2) that the mechanism of cultural change differs radically from that of biological evolution. I argue that while perhaps (1) remains true for certain cultural artifacts, the nature of language may be such as to side‐step this objection. Moreover, I explore the possibility that cladistic parsimony can be justified even if (2) is true by appealing to the inference pattern known among philosophers as ‘Inference to the Best Explanation’ ( IBE ).