title: Comment on "Phonemic diversity supports a serial founder effect model of language expansion from Africa".
abstract: Atkinson (Reports, 15 April 2011, p. 346) argues that the phonological complexity of languages reflects the loss of phonemic distinctions due to successive founder events during human migration (the serial founder hypothesis). Statistical simulations show that the type I error rate of Atkinson's analysis is hugely inflated. The data at best support only a weak interpretation of the serial founder hypothesis.
authors.affiliation: Brain and Cognitive Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0268, USA. fjaeger@bcs.rochester.edu
authors.forename: T Florian
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Jaeger
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pontillo
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Graff
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D010700:Phonetics