mass lexical comparison

Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time, by means of examining languages which are recognizably related through similarities such as vocabulary, word formation, and syntax, as well as the surviving records of ancient languages. Historical linguistics aims to classify the world's languages by their genetic affiliations and to trace the historic development of languages. Modern historical linguistics grew out of t ...

Including:

• Historical linguistics - Language evolution and the comparative method
• Historical linguistics - Non-comparative method theories
• Historical linguistics - Bibliography

Read more here: » Historical linguistics: Encyclopedia - Historical linguistics

Although there is no concrete set of steps to be followed in the application of the comparative method, linguists generally agree on the basic steps, which are as follows: Comparative method - 1. Assemble cognate lists. Relationship between two (or more) languages can be suspected if they show a number of regular correspondences in lexicon, which means that there is a regularly recurring match between the phonetic structure of words with similar meanings. Thus, this step simply involves making lists of wor ...

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Comparative method, Comparative method - Genetically Related languages, Comparative method - How the comparative method works, Comparative method - 1. Assemble cognate lists, Comparative method - 2. Establish correspondence sets, Comparative method - 3. Discover which sets are in complementary distribution, Comparative method - 4. Reconstruct proto-phonemes, Comparative method - 5. Examine the reconstructed system typologically, Comparative method - Weaknesses of the comparative method, Comparative method - The Neogrammarian Hypothesis, Comparative method - Problems with the tree model, Comparative method - Non-uniformity of the proto-language, Comparative method - Creoles, Comparative method - Subjectivity of the reconstruction, Comparative method - Assessment

Read more here: » Comparative method: Encyclopedia II - Comparative method - How the comparative method works

As laid out by Greenberg (2000:279-81), the branches of Eurasiatic are: Etruscan Indo-European Uralic-Yukaghir Altaic Korean-Japanese-Ainu Gilyak Chukotian Eskimo-Aleut Etruscan was spoken in Tuscany and nearby areas of Italy up to the first century A.D. It may have been brought to Italy by emigrants from Anatolia. Indo-European is the hypothetical common anc ...

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Eurasiatic languages, Eurasiatic languages - The branches of Eurasiatic, Eurasiatic languages - Relation to other language families, Eurasiatic languages - Prospects for the Eurasiatic hypothesis

Read more here: » Eurasiatic languages: Encyclopedia II - Eurasiatic languages - The branches of Eurasiatic

The Russian linguist Nikolay Marr expounded a monogenetic theory of language that resolves all modern languages to four primordial exclamations. Drawing on the works of Vladislav Illich-Svitych, the American linguist Joseph Greenberg claimed that long-distance relationships can be shown by applying a controversial approach he called "mass lexical comparison". The languages are compared by using a limited set of words (including function words and affixes) simply by means of counting cognates. He used this method to establish a classification of African languages. His work has generated considerable interest outside the ...

See also:

Proto-World language, Proto-World language - History, Proto-World language - Reference

Read more here: » Proto-World language: Encyclopedia II - Proto-World language - History

Elamite was not related to the neighboring Semitic languages, or Indo-European languages, and although some call Elamite the "sister" to the Sumerian language, the two languages appear to be unrelated. David McAlpin's Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis postulates a genetic relation between Elamite and Dravidian languages, which then would have been carried from Elam to India by eastward migration. More recently, Sergei Starostin has criticized the proposed grammatical correspondences between Elamite and Dravidian as unconvincing, and p ...

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Elamite language, Elamite language - Elamite scripts, Elamite language - Linguistic typology, Elamite language - Relations to other language families, Elamite language - Reference

Read more here: » Elamite language: Encyclopedia II - Elamite language - Relations to other language families

Much more controversial are hypotheses about relatedness which are not supported by application of the comparative method. Scholars who attempt to probe deeper than the comparative method supports (for example, by tabulating similarities found by mass lexical comparison without setting up sound correspondences) are often accused of scholarly wishful thinking. The problem is that any two languages have a huge number of opportunities to resemble one another just by accident, so merely pointing out isolated resemblances has little eviden ...

See also:

Historical linguistics, Historical linguistics - Language evolution and the comparative method, Historical linguistics - Non-comparative method theories, Historical linguistics - Bibliography

Read more here: » Historical linguistics: Encyclopedia II - Historical linguistics - Non-comparative method theories

Joseph Greenberg - Language typology. Greenberg's fame rests in part on his seminal contributions to synchronic linguistics and the quest to identify linguistic universals. In the late 1950's, Greenberg began to examine corpora of languages covering a wide geographic and genetic distribution. He located a number of interesting potential universals, as well as many strong cross-linguistic tendencies. In particular, Greenberg invented the notion of "implicational universal", which takes the form "if a langua ...

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Joseph Greenberg, Joseph Greenberg - Contributions to linguistics, Joseph Greenberg - Language typology, Joseph Greenberg - African languages, Joseph Greenberg - Indo-Pacific languages, Joseph Greenberg - Languages of the Americas, Joseph Greenberg - Eurasiatic Languages, Joseph Greenberg - Greenberg's method of mass comparison

Read more here: » Joseph Greenberg: Encyclopedia II - Joseph Greenberg - Contributions to linguistics

The principal objection to theories like Greenberg's is that contact between populations often results in exchange of words, so similarities in vocabulary and even in grammatical structure do not necessarily indicate a common origin. For instance, English contains many French words and Persian contains many Turkish and Arabic words. Nevertheless it remains true to say that English is a descendant of Proto-Germanic and Persian is a descendant of Old Persian. Whether similarities between two languages are due to common ancestry or to linguisti ...

See also:

Eurasiatic languages, Eurasiatic languages - The branches of Eurasiatic, Eurasiatic languages - Relation to other language families, Eurasiatic languages - Prospects for the Eurasiatic hypothesis

Read more here: » Eurasiatic languages: Encyclopedia II - Eurasiatic languages - Prospects for the Eurasiatic hypothesis

In the present context, "related" has a specific meaning: two languages are said to be genetically related if they are descended from the same ancestor language. Thus, for example, Spanish and French are both descended from Latin. "Descent", in turn, is defined in terms of transmission across the generations: children learn a language from the parents' generation and are then influenced by their peers; they then transmit it to the next generation, and so on (how and why changes are introduced is a complicated, unresolved issue). A continuous chain of speakers acros ...

See also:

Comparative method, Comparative method - Genetically Related languages, Comparative method - How the comparative method works, Comparative method - 1. Assemble cognate lists, Comparative method - 2. Establish correspondence sets, Comparative method - 3. Discover which sets are in complementary distribution, Comparative method - 4. Reconstruct proto-phonemes, Comparative method - 5. Examine the reconstructed system typologically, Comparative method - Weaknesses of the comparative method, Comparative method - The Neogrammarian Hypothesis, Comparative method - Problems with the tree model, Comparative method - Non-uniformity of the proto-language, Comparative method - Creoles, Comparative method - Subjectivity of the reconstruction, Comparative method - Assessment

Read more here: » Comparative method: Encyclopedia II - Comparative method - Genetically Related languages

Vastly more controversial are hypotheses about relatedness which are not supported by application of the comparative method. Scholars who attempt to probe deeper than the comparative method supports (for example, by tabulating similarities found by mass lexical comparison without setting up sound correspondences) are often accused of scholarly wishful thinking. The problem is that any two languages have a huge number of opportunities to resemble one another just by accident, so merely pointing out isolated resemblances has little evid ...

See also:

Historical linguistics, Historical linguistics - Language evolution and the comparative method, Historical linguistics - Non-comparative method theories, Historical linguistics - Bibliography

Read more here: » Historical linguistics: Encyclopedia II - Historical linguistics - Non-comparative method theories

Languages change over time. What were once dialects of the same language may eventually diverge enough that they are no longer mutually intelligible and can be considered separate languages. One method to illustrate the relationship between such divergent yet related languages is to construct family trees, an idea pioneered by the 19th century historical linguist August Schleicher. The basis for the trees is the comparative method: languages presumed to be related are compared with one another, and linguists look for regular sound cor ...

See also:

Historical linguistics, Historical linguistics - Language evolution and the comparative method, Historical linguistics - Non-comparative method theories, Historical linguistics - Bibliography

Read more here: » Historical linguistics: Encyclopedia II - Historical linguistics - Language evolution and the comparative method

While most historical linguists continue to use the comparative method, many of them now also recognize quite a few serious weaknesses in the method. In recent years, alternatives to the comparative method have been proposed (see Mass lexical comparison), in part due to percieved problems inherent to the method. Comparative method - The Neogrammarian Hypothesis. The first weakness of the comparative method is the fundamental Neogrammarians' assumption that "sound laws have no exceptions". This assumption i ...

See also:

Comparative method, Comparative method - Genetically Related languages, Comparative method - How the comparative method works, Comparative method - 1. Assemble cognate lists, Comparative method - 2. Establish correspondence sets, Comparative method - 3. Discover which sets are in complementary distribution, Comparative method - 4. Reconstruct proto-phonemes, Comparative method - 5. Examine the reconstructed system typologically, Comparative method - Weaknesses of the comparative method, Comparative method - The Neogrammarian Hypothesis, Comparative method - Problems with the tree model, Comparative method - Non-uniformity of the proto-language, Comparative method - Creoles, Comparative method - Subjectivity of the reconstruction, Comparative method - Assessment

Read more here: » Comparative method: Encyclopedia II - Comparative method - Weaknesses of the comparative method