E-raamat: Language Classification by Numbers

April McMahon (English, U. of Edinburgh) and Robert McMahon (molecular genetics, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh) have worked together for the past ten years on interdisciplinary issues including connections between evolutionary theory, genetics, and historical linguistics. Here they consider a range of methods for comparing languages to discern meaningful resemblances in the data, which enable the identification of those languages descended from a single common ancestor and lead to the recovery of the history that produced that divergence. The authors apply computer programs from biology and evolutionary genetics to language data, test current theories and hypotheses, and demonstrate how new ideas can be formulated and new techniques applied to old data for new results. For students and researchers in historical and comparative linguistics, archaeology, genetics, and anthropology. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

This book considers how languages have traditionally been divided into families, and asks how they should classified in the future. It describes and applies computer programs from biology and evolutionary genetics to data about languages and shows how the power of the computer can be harnessed to throw light on long-standing problems in historical linguistics. It tests current theories and hypotheses, shows how new ideas can be formulated, and offers a series of demonstrations that the new techniques applied to old data can produce convincing results that are sometimes startlingly at odds with accepted wisdom. April and Robert McMahon combine the expertise and perspectives of an historical linguist and a geneticist. They analyse the links between linguistic and population genetics, and consider how far language can be used to discover and understand the histories and interrelations of human populations. They explore the origins and formation of the Indo-European languages and examine less well studied languages in South America. Their book will be of great practical importance to students and researchers in historical and comparative linguistics and will interest all those concerned with the classification and diffusion of languages in fields such as archaeology, genetics, and anthropology. Its approachable style will appeal to general readers seeking to know more about the relationship between linguistic and human history.