In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards to infer the properties of that ancestor. The comparative method may be contrasted with the method of internal reconstruction in which the internal development of a single language is inferred by the analysis of features within that language. Ordinarily, both methods are used together to reconstruct prehistoric phases of languages; to fill in gaps in the historical record of a language; to discover the development of phonological, morphological and other linguistic systems and to confirm or to refute hypothesised relationships between languages.
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, and Spanish, have expanded through colonialism in the modern period and are now spoken across several continents. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, of which there are eight groups with languages still alive today: Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, and Italic; and another nine subdivisions that are now extinct.
Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s, *h, *hʷ, following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives *β, *ð, *z, *ɣ, *ɣʷ. The law was formulated by Karl Verner, and first published in 1877.
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages.
Germanic philology is the philological study of the Germanic languages, particularly from a comparative or historical perspective.
Historische Sprachforschung / Historical Linguistics is an annual peer-reviewed academic journal covering Indo-European historical linguistics. It is the second oldest linguistics journal still in publication. The current editors-in-chief are Martin Kümmel, Olav Hackstein, and Sabine Ziegler. The journal is published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Modern Language Review is the journal of the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA). It is one of the oldest journals in the field of modern languages. Founded in 1905, it has published more than 3,000 articles and 20,000 book reviews.
Modern Language Notes (MLN) is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1886 at the Johns Hopkins University, with the intention of introducing continental European literary criticism into American scholarship. The journal is published five times per year, with one issue covering each of the four languages of concern, while the fifth issue focuses on comparative literature. Each issue has its own specific sets of editors.
Hans Henrich Hock is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Sanskrit at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattested, or partially attested at best. They are reconstructed by way of the comparative method.
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal of linguistics focusing on the study of multilingualism, including bilingual language competence, perception and production, bilingual language acquisition in children and adults, neurolinguistics of bilingualism, and non-linguistic cognitive processes in bilinguals. The journal is published by Cambridge University Press and was co-established by François Grosjean in 1998.
In historical linguistics, the Germanic parent language (GPL) includes the reconstructed languages in the Germanic group referred to as Pre-Germanic Indo-European (PreGmc), Early Proto-Germanic (EPGmc), and Late Proto-Germanic (LPGmc), spoken in the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE.
Edgar Ghislain Charles Polomé was a Belgian-born American philologist and religious studies scholar. He specialized in Germanic and Indo-European studies and was active at the University of Texas at Austin for much of his career.
The Canadian Journal of Linguistics is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering theoretical and applied linguistics. It is published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Canadian Linguistic Association. The journal was established in 1954 as the Journal of the Canadian Linguistic Association. It changed its name to the current title in 1961. The editor-in-chief is Heather Newell. The co-editor is Daniel Siddiqi.
The Journal of Second Language Writing is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the fields of linguistics and language education. Its scope encompasses all aspects of second and foreign language writing, including writing instruction and assessment. It was established in 1992 and is published quarterly by Elsevier. The current editors-in-chief are Amanda Kibler and Todd Ruecker. The founding editors were Ilona Leki and Tony Silva.
Journal of Germanic Linguistics is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of linguistics. It is devoted particularly to Germanic languages, including both their historical and contemporary forms. It was established in 1989 as the American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literatures and was published biannually up to 2001, when it acquired the current title in order to reflect its international scope and, at the same time, the narrowing of its focus to exclusively linguistics. It is currently published quarterly by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Germanic Linguistics and the Forum for the Society for Germanic Language Studies. Its editor-in-chief is Tracy Alan Hall.
Language Testing is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering language testing and assessment. Its editors-in-chief are Luke Harding and Paula Winke. It was established in 1984 and is published by SAGE Publications.
In Indo-European studies, the salmon problem or salmon argument is an outdated argument in favour of placing the Indo-European urheimat in the Baltic region, as opposed to the Eurasian Steppe, based on the cognate etymology of the respective words for salmon in Germanic and Balto-Slavic languages. The word's wide distribution likely means it existed in its current form in a Proto-Indo-European language.
Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on the Sino-Tibetan languages and other mainland Southeast Asian languages. It was established in 1974 and was closely associated with the Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus project led by James A. Matisoff until the project's end in 2015. Starting from volume 37 (2014), it has been published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. The journal is abstracted and indexed in Scopus.
