The relationships between languages molded by extremely complex so- cial, cultural and political factors are assessed by an automated method, in which the distance between languages is estimated by the average normalized Levenshtein distance between words from the list of 200 meanings maximally resistant to change. A sequential process of language classification described by random walks on the matrix of lexical distances allows to represent complex relationships between lan- guages geometrically, in terms of distances and angles. We have tested the method on a sample of 50 Indo-European and 50 Austronesian languages. The geometric representations of language taxonomy allow for making accurate interfaces on the most significant events of human history by tracing changes in language families through time. The Anatolian and Kurgan hypothesis of the Indo-European origin and the “express train” model of the Polynesian origin are thoroughly discussed.

Levenstein’s distance for measuring lexical evolution rates

SERVA, Maurizio;
2015-01-01

Abstract

The relationships between languages molded by extremely complex so- cial, cultural and political factors are assessed by an automated method, in which the distance between languages is estimated by the average normalized Levenshtein distance between words from the list of 200 meanings maximally resistant to change. A sequential process of language classification described by random walks on the matrix of lexical distances allows to represent complex relationships between lan- guages geometrically, in terms of distances and angles. We have tested the method on a sample of 50 Indo-European and 50 Austronesian languages. The geometric representations of language taxonomy allow for making accurate interfaces on the most significant events of human history by tracing changes in language families through time. The Anatolian and Kurgan hypothesis of the Indo-European origin and the “express train” model of the Polynesian origin are thoroughly discussed.
2015
978-3-319-09863-0
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11697/26687
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