To What Extent are Surnames Words? Comparing Geographic Patterns of Surname and Dialect Variation in the Netherlands

Since the early studies by Sokal (1988) and Cavalli-Sforza et al . (1989), there has been an increasing interest in depicting the history of human migrations by comparing genetic and linguistic differences that mirror different aspects of human history. Most of the literature concerns continental or macroregional patterns of variation, while regional and microregional scales were investigated less successfully. In this article we concentrate on the Netherlands, an area of only 40,000 km2. The focus of the article is on the analysis of surnames, which have been proven to be reliable genetic mar... Mehr ...