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Altaic is a sprachbund and controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. Speakers of these languages are currently scattered over most of Asia north of 35 °N and in some eastern parts of Europe, extending in longitude from Turkey to Japan. The group is named after the Altai mountain range in the center of Asia.
The Proto-Human language is the hypothetical direct genetic predecessor of all the world's spoken languages. It would not be ancestral to sign languages.
Glottochronology is the part of lexicostatistics which involves comparative linguistics and deals with the chronological relationship between languages.
Morris Swadesh was an American linguist who specialized in comparative and historical linguistics.
Lexicostatistics is a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a proto-language. It is to be distinguished from glottochronology, which attempts to use lexicostatistical methods to estimate the length of time since two or more languages diverged from a common earlier proto-language. This is merely one application of lexicostatistics, however; other applications of it may not share the assumption of a constant rate of change for basic lexical items.
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Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness.
The Swadesh list is a classic compilation of tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. Translations of the Swadesh list into a set of languages allow researchers to quantify the interrelatedness of those languages. The Swadesh list is named after linguist Morris Swadesh. It is used in lexicostatistics and glottochronology. Because there are several different lists, some authors also refer to "Swadesh lists".
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The Moscow School of Comparative Linguistics is a school of linguistics based in Moscow, Russia that is known for its work in long-range comparative linguistics. Formerly based at Moscow State University, it is currently centered at the RSUH Institute of Linguistics, and also the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia.
References
- ↑ "Evolution of Human Languages: An international project on the linguistic prehistory of humanity". ehl.santafe.edu. Santa Fe Institute. Retrieved December 31, 2012.
- ↑ Velasquez-Manoff, Moises (July 20, 2007). "Linguists seek a time when we spoke as one". USA Today. Retrieved December 31, 2012.
- ↑ Mark Pagel, Quentin D. Atkinson, Andreea S. Calude, Andrew Meade. Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 2013, 110 (21) 8471-8476; doi : 10.1073/pnas.1218726110
- ↑ "Evolution of Human Languages": current state of affairs (March 2014).
- ↑ Woodward, Richard B. "The Man Who Loved Languages: A Scholar with the Ability and Audacity to Rebuild the Tower of Babel Died a Year Ago, but His Controversial Project Lives on." The American Scholar 75, no. 4 (2006): 44-57. Accessed December 27, 2020.
- ↑ Evolution of Human Languages - The Participants.
- ↑ "Evolution of Human Languages - An Introduction" at Santafe.edu, retrieved 25 October 2007. New link, see here. Accessed Oct 27, 2009.
- ↑ The Tower of Babel project. at Starling.rinet.ru, retrieved 25 October 2007.
- ↑ Unified Transcription System (UTS) for the Global Lexicostatical Database.
- ↑ Starostin, George (ed.) 2011-2019. The Global Lexicostatistical Database . Moscow: Higher School of Economics, & Santa Fe: Santa Fe Institute. Accessed on 2020-12-26.
- ↑ Kassian, Alexei, George Starostin, Anna Dybo, Vasiliy Chernov. 2010. The Swadesh wordlist. An attempt at semantic specification. Journal of Language Relationship 4: 46–89. (PDF)
- ↑ Starostin, George. Preliminary lexicostatistics as a basis for language classification: A new approach. Journal of Language Relationship , No. 3 (2010). P. 79–116.
