1Lancaster University
2Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie
3Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
4Northern Illinois University
5Kazanskij gosudarstvennyj universitet
6Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
7Edge Hill University
8University of California at Los Angeles
c1 Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, LA1 4YT Lancaster, U.K.; e-mail: (email)
c2 Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; e-mail: (email)
c3 Institut für Anglistik, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Otto-Behaghel-Straße 10 B, 35394 Gießen, Germany; e-mail: (email)
c4 Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; e-mail: (email)
c5 Department of Anthropology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, U.S.A; e-mail: (email)
c6 26 Willow Green Drive, Jackson, TN 38305, U.S.A; e-mail: (email)
c7 Laboratorija kognitivnyx nauk, Filologičeskij fakul'tet, Kazanskij gosudarstvennyj universitet, ul. Kremlevskaja, 18, 420008, Kazan', Russian Federation; e-mail: (email)
c8 Englische Sprachwissenschaft, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Universitätsallee 1, 85072 Eichstätt, Germany; e-mail: (email)
c9 Department of English and History, Edge Hill University, St Helens Road, Ormskirk L39 4QP, U.K.; e-mail: (email)
c10 Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1563, U.S.A.; e-mail: (email)
Citation Information: Linguistic Typology. Volume 13, Issue 1, Pages 169–181, ISSN (Online) 1613-415X, ISSN (Print) 1430-0532, DOI: 10.1515/LITY.2009.009, May 2009
Abstract
The ASJP project aims at establishing relationships between languages on the basis of the Swadesh word list. For this purpose, lists have been collected and phonologically transcribed for almost 3,500 languages. Using a method based on the algorithm proposed by Levenshtein (Cybernetics and Control Theory 10: 707–710, 1966), a custom-made computer program calculates the distances between all pairs of languages in the database. Standard software is used to express the relationships between languages graphically. The current article compares the results of our lexicon-based approach with the results of a similar exercise that takes the typological variables contained in the WALS database as a point of departure. We establish that the latter approach leads to even better results than the lexicon-based one. The best result in terms of correspondence with some well-established genetic and areal classifications, however, is attained when the lexical and typological methods are combined, especially if we select both the most stable Swadesh items and the most stable WALS variables.
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