Glottochronology

Glottochronology estimates when languages diverged by comparing shared basic vocabulary and assuming that words are replaced at a roughly constant rate.

Swadesh list: A standardized list of basic vocabulary items designed for comparison across languages. Glottochronology compares languages using lists of this kind to reduce variation in the words sampled.
Morris Swadesh: An American linguist who developed influential methods and vocabulary lists for comparing languages. Swadesh formulated the best-known version of glottochronology and designed its comparison lists.
Bayesian phylogenetics: A statistical approach that infers evolutionary histories and dates using probability models and prior information. It can model varied rates and uncertainty rather than impose one fixed vocabulary-replacement rate.
Language family: A group of languages descended from a common ancestral language. Glottochronological estimates concern when branches of a language family separated.
Lexicostatistics: A method for comparing languages by measuring similarities in their basic vocabulary. Glottochronology builds on lexicostatistical comparison by translating vocabulary similarity into divergence dates.
Historical linguistics: The study of how languages change and how they are related through time. Glottochronology arose as a quantitative approach within the broader study of language history.
Internal reconstruction: A method that infers earlier stages of a language from patterns within that language. It reconstructs change from linguistic structure rather than estimating dates from shared-vocabulary percentages.
Proto-language: An ancestral language reconstructed as the common source of a group of related languages. A proposed divergence date helps place daughter languages relative to their shared ancestor.
Cognate: A word inherited in related languages from a shared ancestral word. Identifying cognates supplies the shared-word counts used in glottochronological estimates.
Comparative method: A method for reconstructing ancestral languages by comparing systematic correspondences among related languages. Unlike glottochronology's rate-based dating, it establishes relationships through recurring sound correspondences.

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