Lexicostatistics

Lexicostatistics compares languages by measuring the proportion of cognates in standardized vocabulary lists. It uses lexical similarity to estimate relationships or degrees of divergence.

Swadesh list: A standardized list of basic vocabulary items used in historical and comparative linguistics. Lexicostatistical comparisons often use these lists to make vocabulary samples comparable.
Morris Swadesh: An American linguist who developed influential vocabulary lists and methods for comparing languages. His lists and rate-based proposals shaped modern lexicostatistical practice.
Language classification: The grouping of languages according to shared features and historical relationships. Cognate proportions can suggest which languages merit closer comparative study.
Lexical replacement: The process by which words are lost and replaced by other forms in a language. Uneven replacement rates undermine assumptions that cognate loss proceeds at a constant pace.
Cognate: A word related to another word through descent from a shared ancestral form. The method counts cognates, not merely words that look or mean alike.
Edward Sapir: An American linguist and anthropologist whose work shaped structural linguistics and the study of language history. Sapir's work on language relationships helped frame quantitative comparison as a historical tool.
Language divergence: The historical process by which related languages become increasingly distinct. Lexicostatistics uses vocabulary differences as an indicator of divergence.
Language contact: Interaction between speakers of different languages that can produce linguistic influence and borrowing. Borrowed words can resemble inherited cognates and distort similarity counts.
Cognate judgment: The process of deciding whether words in different languages descend from the same ancestral form. These decisions determine which items enter the shared-cognate count.
Historical linguistics: The study of how languages change and how they are related through descent. Lexicostatistics arose as a quantitative approach within this broader field.

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