“宇宙的尽头是 (东北)铁岭”，这是段曾广为流传的网络段子，充满幽默成分，但中国东北真的摊上“人类大事”了。它肯定不是宇宙的尽头，但可能是数亿人说的语言的源头!
根据路透社报道，一项综合了语言、基因和考古学证据的研究发现，包括现代日语、韩语、土耳其语和蒙古语等同一语系的语言以及说这些语言的人，都起源于大约 9000 年前生活在中国东北地区种植谷子的古代农民。
A study combining linguistic, genetic and archaeological evidence has traced the origins of the family of languages including modern Japanese, Korean, Turkish and Mongolian and the people who speak them to millet farmers who inhabited a region in northeastern China about 9,000 years ago.
据《南华早报》报道，这份由来自英国、中国、捷克、法国、德国、日本、新西兰、韩国、俄罗斯、荷兰和美国的研究人员联合公布的研究，于11月10日发布在了《自然》期刊上。
The researchers from Britain, China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia, the Netherlands and the United States published their findings in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
《南华早报》报道称，形成泛欧亚语系的五个群体——日本人、朝鲜人、通古斯人、蒙古人和突厥人的起源和共同程度，长期以来一直是学者争论的领域。该论文团队表示，最近的研究“已经显示出可靠的核心证据”，支持他们源自一个共同祖先的理论。
The origins and degree to which the five groups that make up the Transeurasian family are related has long been an area of contention among scholars, but the team said that recent studies “have shown a reliable core of evidence” supporting the theory that they emerged from a common ancestor.
研究人员表示，代表着泛欧亚语系98种语言的250种词汇概念的数据组显示，这一语系的源头可以追溯到9181年前住在西辽河流域的种植谷子的农民。
The researchers said a data set representing more than 250 vocabulary concepts in 98 languages showed the roots of the language family reaching back 9,181 years to millet farmers living in the region of the West Liao River.
路透社报道称，泛欧亚语系总共有98种语言，包括韩语、日语、各类突厥语系(包括在欧洲、安纳托利亚、中亚和西伯利亚部分地区的土耳其语)、各类蒙古语系以及分布在满洲和西伯利亚的通古斯语系。
There are 98 Transeurasian languages. Among these are Korean and Japanese as well as: various Turkic languages including Turkish in parts of Europe, Anatolia, Central Asia and Siberia; various Mongolic languages including Mongolian in Central and Northeast Asia; and various Tungusic languages in Manchuria and Siberia.
这个语系的源头可以追溯到新石器时代位于中国辽宁、吉林和内蒙三地的辽河谷种植谷子的农民。随着这些农民迁移到东北亚，其后代语言在数千年的时间里，就随之向北和西传播到了西伯利亚和大草原，也向东传播到朝鲜半岛并跨过海洋到达日本群岛。
This language family's beginnings were traced to Neolithic millet farmers in the Liao River valley, an area encompassing parts of the Chinese provinces of Liaoning and Jilin and the region of Inner Mongolia. As these farmers moved across northeastern Asia, the descendant languages spread north and west into Siberia and the steppes and east into the Korean peninsula and over the sea to the Japanese archipelago over thousands of years.
该研究的联合作者之一考古学家马克·哈德逊(Mark Hudson)表示，研究人员检查了来自中国、日本、朝鲜半岛和俄罗斯远东地区的255个考古遗址的数据，从包括陶器、石制工具、种植物和动物遗骸的人工制品中总结出相似性。他们还把各个遗址各时期的269种古代农作物残留物也考虑在内了。
这份研究的主要作者马丁·罗贝兹(Martine Robbeets)坦言：“接受自己的语言、文化和祖先来自现有的国家边界之外，是一种身份的屈服，这让一些人还没准备好。”
Accepting that the roots of one's language, culture or people lie beyond the present national boundaries is a kind of surrender of identity, which some people are not yet prepared to make," said comparative linguist Martine Robbeets, leader of the Archaeolinguistic Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.