The Sino-Tibetan language family is one of the world’s largest
and most prominent families, spoken by nearly 1.4 billion people.
Despite the importance of the Sino-Tibetan languages, their pre-history remains controversial, with ongoing debate about when
and where they originated. To shed light on this debate we
develop a database of comparative linguistic data, and apply the
linguistic comparative method to identify sound correspondences
and establish cognates. We then use phylogenetic methods to
infer the relationships among these languages and estimate the
age of their origin and homeland. Our findings point to Sino-Tibetan originating with north Chinese millet farmers around
7200 B.P. and suggest a link to the late Cishan and the early
Yangshao cultures.