Methods and systems are provided for timing synchronization for reception of highly-spectrally efficient communications. An example method may include, filtering, in a receiver, a received inter-symbol correlated (ISC) signal to generate a filtered ISC signal. The method may further include locking to a timing pilot signal of the filtered ISC signal. The timing pilot signal may include a sub-harmonic frequency of a clock signal associated with the received ISC signal. A timing pilot estimate signal of the timing pilot signal may be generated. The timing pilot estimate signal may be cancelled from the filtered partial response signal to generate an output ISC signal. The timing pilot signal includes a signal at ±(1/n*Fbaud), where n is an integer greater than 2, and Fbaud is a symbol rate of the clock signal. The clock signal may be recovered from the filtered ISC signal.