The formalization of sound changes as finite state transducers is implicit already in the Neogrammarians. For at least six decades scholars have recognized the potential of transducers for improving the speed and rigor of research in historical linguists, but almost no historical linguists actually use them. This article identifies the obstacles…[Read more]

For a long time, metaphors have played an important role in depicting language history. In this study, we contrast early metaphors on language history, such as the family tree or the wave model, with recent metaphors that were popularized after the quantitative turn, such as forests of trees or phylogenetic networks. Speculating about metaphors…[Read more]

Historical language comparison for the purpose of identifying cognates and sound correspondences in multilingual wordlists which can later be used to infer phylogenetic trees can be conveniently carried out in a framework of computer-assisted language comparison (see http://calc.digling.org), using tools for automatic inference, like LingPy…[Read more]

In a recent issue of the Journal of Language Evolution, Syrjänen et al. (2021) investigate the suitability of computing Cummins and McInerney’s (2011) TIGER rates for estimating the tree-likeness of linguistic datasets compiled for phylogenetic reconstruction. The authors test the TIGER rates on a diverse sample of simulated data, which by and lar…[Read more]

By reviewing a recent quantitative study of rhyme patterns in Mandarin Chinese, this study shows how data handling and data analysis in the study of rhyme patterns can be improved. Suggestions for improvement include (a) a consistent annotation of rhyme data, which is exhaustive and facilitates data reuse, and (b) emphasizes the importance of…[Read more]

This paper presents a newly funded international project for machine translation and automated analysis of ancient cuneiform 1 languages where NLP special ists and Assyriologists collaborate to create an information retrieval system for
Sumerian. This research is conceived in response to the need to translate large numbers of administrative texts…[Read more]

Project Abstract: Ancient Mesopotamia, birthplace of writing, has produced vast numbers of cuneiform tablets that only a handful of highly specialized scholars are able to read. The task of studying them is so labor intensive that the vast majority have not yet been translated, with the result that their contents are not accessible either to…[Read more]

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