Glottochronology Totally Explained

Everything about Glottochronology totally explained

Glottochronology refers to methods in historical linguistics used to estimate the time at which languages diverged, based on the assumption that the basic (core) vocabulary of a language changes at a constant average rate. This assumption, originally put forward by Morris Swadesh, is based on an analogy with the use of carbon dating for measuring the age of organic materials, in that a "lexical half-life" is estimated. The method estimates the length of time since two or more languages diverged from a common earlier proto-language, by counting the number of words that have been replaced in each language. This then yields an estimated date of origin for those languages. Glottochronology is an adjunct to lexicostatistics, with which it has been sometimes confused.

History

The concept of language change is old and its history is reviewed in Hymes (1973) and Wells (1973). Glottochronology itself dates back to the mid-20th century (see Lees 1953; Swadesh 1955, 1972) An introduction to the subject is given in Embleton (1986) and in McMahon and McMahon (2005).
Glottochronology has long been controversial, partly owing to issues of precision, as well as the question of whether its basis is sound (see for example Bergsland 1958; Bergsland and Vogt 1962; Fodor 1961; Chretien 1962; Guy 1980). These concerns have been addressed by Dobson et al (1972), Dyen (1973) and Krustal, Dyen and Black (1973). The assumption of a single-word replacement rate can distort the divergence-time estimate when borrowed words are included; but more realistic models have been used.
Chretien purported to disprove the mathematics of the model. At a conference at Yale in 1971 his criticisms were shown to be invalid.
An overview of recent arguments can be obtained from the papers of a conference held at the McDonald Institute in 2000. See Renfrew, McMahon and Trask, 2002. These presentations vary from "Why linguists don't do dates" to the one by Starostin discussed above.

Methodology

Word List

The original method presumed that the core vocabulary of a language is replaced at a constant (or near constant) rate across all languages and cultures, and can therefore be used to measure the passage of time. The process makes use of a list of lexical terms compiled by Morris Swadesh assumed to be resistant against borrowing (originally designed as a list of 200 items; however, the refined 100 word list in Swadesh (1955) is much more common among modern day linguists). This core vocabulary was designed to encompass concepts common to every human language (such as personal pronouns, body parts, heavenly bodies, verbs of basic actions, numerals 'one' and 'two', etc.), eliminating concepts that are specific to a particular culture or time. It has been found that this ideal isn't in fact possible and that the meaning set may need to be tailored to the languages being compared.
The percentage of cognates (words that have a common origin) in these word lists is then measured. The larger the percentage of cognates, the more recently the two languages being compared are presumed to have separated.

Glottochronologic Constant

Lees obtained a value for the "glottochronological constant" of words by considering the known changes in 13 pairs of languages using the 200 word list. He obtained a value of 0.806 +/-0.0176 with 90% confidence. For the 100 word list Swadesh obtained a value of 0.86, the higher value reflecting the elimination of borrowed words. This constant may be related to the retention rate of words by:- ť

L = 2ln(r)

where L is the rate of replacement, ln is the logarithm to base e, and r is the glottochronological constant

Divergence Time

The basic formula of glottochronology in its shortest form is:- ť

t = frac

In this formula, -Lc reflects the gradual slowing down of the replacement process due to different individual rates (the less stable elements are the first and the quickest to be replaced), whereas the square root represents the reverse trend - acceleration of replacement as items in the original wordlist "age" and become more prone to shifting their meaning. The formula is obviously more complicated than Swadesh's original one, but, as shown in Starostin's work, yields more credible results than the former (and more or less agrees with all the cases of language separation that can be confirmed by historical knowledge). On the other hand, it shows that glottochronology can really only be used as a serious scientific tool on language families the historical phonology of which has been meticulously elaborated (at least to the point of being able to clearly distinguish between cognates and loanwords).

Time-Depth Estimation

The problem of time-depth estimation was the subject of a conference held by the McDonald Institute in 2000. The published papers (Renfrew, McMahon and Trask, 2002) give an idea of the views on glottochronology at the time. These vary from "Why linguists don't do dates" to the one by Starostin discussed above. Note that in the referenced Gray and Atkinson paper, they argue that their methods can not be called "glottochronology".

Bibliography

Arndt, Walter W. (1959). The performance of glottochronology in Germanic. Language, 35, 180-192.

Bergsland, Knut; & Vogt, Hans. (1962). On the validity of glottochronology. Current Anthropology, 3, 115-153.

Brainerd, Barron (1970). A Stochastic Process related to Language Change. Journal of Applied Probability 7, 69-78.

Callaghan, Catherine A. (1991). Utian and the Swadesh list. In J. E. Redden (Ed.), Papers for the American Indian language conference, held at the University of California, Santa Cruz, July and August, 1991 (pp. 218-237). Occasional papers on linguistics (No. 16). Carbondale: Department of Linguistics, Southern Illinois University.

Campbell, Lyle. (1998). Historical Linguistics; An Introduction [Chapter6.5]. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-7486-0775-7.

Chretien, Douglas (1962). The Mathematical Models of Glottochronology. Language 38, 11-37.

Crowley, Terry (1997). An introduction to historical linguistics. 3rd ed. Auckland: Oxford Univ. Press. pp. 171-193.

Gray, R.D. & Atkinson, Q.D. (2003): Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin. Nature, 426, 435-439.

Gudschinsky, Sarah. (1956). The ABC's of lexicostatistics (glottochronology). Word, 12, 175-210.

Haarmann, Harald. (1990). "Basic vocabulary and language contacts; the disillusion of glottochronology. In Indogermanische Forschungen 95:7ff.

Hockett, Charles F. (1958). A course in modern linguistics (Chap. 6). New York: Macmillan.

Hoijer, Harry. (1956). Lexicostatistics: A critique. Language, 32, 49-60.

Holm, Hans J. (2003). The Proportionality Trap. Or: What is wrong with lexicostatistical Subgrouping.Indogermanische Forschungen, 108,38-46.

Holm, Hans J. (2005). Genealogische Verwandtschaft. Kap. 45 in Quantitative Linguistik; ein internationales Handbuch. Herausgegeben von R.Köhler, G. Altmann, R. Piotrowski, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Holm, Hans J. (2007). The new Arboretum of Indo-European 'Trees'; Can new algorithms reveal the Phylogeny and even Prehistory of IE?. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 14-2:167-214

Hymes, Dell H. (1960). Lexicostatistics so far. Current Anthropology, 1 (1), 3-44.

Lees, Robert. (1953). The basis of glottochronology. Language, 29 (2), 113-127.

McWhorter, John. (2001). The power of Babel. New York: Freeman. ISBN.

McMahon, April and McMahon, Robert (2005) Language Classification by Numbers. Oxford: Oxford University Press (in particular p. 95).

Nettle, Daniel. (1999). Linguistic diversity of the Americas can be reconciled with a recent colonization. in PNAS 96(6):3325-9.

Renfrew, C., McMahon, A., & L. Trask, Eds. (2000). Time Depth in Historical LInguistics. Cambridge, England: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

Sjoberg, Andree; & Sjoberg, Gideon. (1956). Problems in glottochronology. American Anthropologist, 58 (2), 296-308.

Starostin, Sergei. Methodology Of Long-Range Comparison. 2002. pdf

Swadesh, Morris. (1955). Towards greater accuracy in lexicostatistic dating. International Journal of American Linguistics, 21, 121-137.

Swadesh, Morris (1972). What is glottochronology? In M. Swadesh, The origin and diversification of languages (pp. 271–284). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Tischler, Johann, 1973. Glottochronologie und Lexikostatistik [InnsbruckerBeiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 11]; Innsbruck

Zipf, George K. (1965). The Psychobiology of Language: an Introduction to Dynamic Philology. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T.Press.Further Information

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