Workshop on Ecology, Populations Movements and Language Diversity

How did cross-linguistic diversity emerge? What part did population movements and language contacts contribute to the emergence of this phenomenon? Did structural diversity emerge concurrently with the gradual evolution of language in mankind or did this state of affairs emerge subsequent to the dispersal of the late Homo sapiens (Homo loquens?) out of Africa? Are there plausible answers to such questions and what kinds of evidence can be adduced to bear on them? What are the modern patterns of typological diversity, even among languages of the same genetic family? What is/are the best ways to account for such variation?