glottochronology

(ˌɡlɒtəʊkrəˈnɒlədʒɪ) n (Linguistics) the use of lexicostatistics to establish that languages are historically related[C20 glotto-, from Greek glōtta tongue]

glottochronology

a statistical and lexical study of two languages deriving from a common source to determine the time of their divergence, as English and German. Cf. lexicostatistics. — glottochronologist, n. — glottochronological, adj.See also: Linguistics

the study of two or more related but distinct languages in order to determine when they separated, by examining the lexicon they share and those parts of it that have been replaced. — glottochronologist, n. — glottochronological, adj.See also: Time

glottochronology

The study of the historical relationships between languages.

Thesaurus

Noun

glottochronology - the determination of how long ago different languages evolved from a common source language; "he mapped the glottochronology of the Romance languages"chronology - the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events

Translations

Glottochronologieглоттохронология

Glottochronology

a set of various statistical methods for dating the prehistoric processes of the separation of language families. Glottochronology claims to determine, in absolute or relative terms, the period of time during which individual languages became differentiated from a common parent language. The most common variant of the glottochronological method, which was devised in the 1950’s by the American linguist M. Swadesh, is based on the assumption that there exists in the languages of the world a universal lexical stratum, which reflects concepts that are basic to human society and whose rate of change is approximately identical in different periods.

Glottochronology uses the formula t = log c/2 log r, where t represents the time from the beginning of the separation of two languages to the present moment, determined by the number of common lexical elements that have been retained; c is the percentage of the original stock of the universal vocabulary retained in a given language; and r is the empirically revealed mean index of the words retained (expressed as a percentage) after one millennium. The results of specific estimates do not provide strong support for the datings because of a certain mechanistic aspect of the method’s basic premises. The resultant absolute dates may have real significance if they are controlled by nonstatistical estimates of linguistic time.

REFERENCES

Novoe v lingvistike, fasc. 1. Edited by V. A. Zvegintsev. Moscow, 1960. Pages 9-107.
Klimov, G. A. “O leksiko-statisticheskoi teorii M. Svodesha.” In Voprosy teorii iazyka v sovremennoi zarubezhnoi lingvistike. Moscow, 1961.

G. A. KLIMOV

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REFERENCES

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Words related to glottochronology

noun the determination of how long ago different languages evolved from a common source language

Related Words