Article published In:
Journal of Historical Linguistics: Online-First ArticlesCalibrated weighted permutation test detects ancient language connections in the Circumpolar area (Chukotian-Nivkh and Yukaghir-Samoyedic)
Alexei S. Kassian | The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration | Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Mikhail Zhivlov | National Research University Higher School of Economics | Russian State University for the Humanities
Sergey A. Spirin | Lomonosov Moscow State University | National Research University Higher School of Economics | Federal State Institution “Scientific Research Institute for System Analysis of the Russian Academy of
Sciences”
Relationships between universally recognized language families represent a hotly debated topic in historical
linguistics, and the same is true for correlation between signals of genetic and linguistic relatedness. We developed a weighted
permutation test which represents the classical permutation tests with weights introduced for individual Swadesh concepts
according to their typological stability. Further, the obtained values were calibrated on a negative control group to override
non-uniform distribution of phonemes within the Swadesh wordlist. We applied the calibrated permutation test to the basic
vocabularies of nine languages and reconstructed proto-languages to show that three groups of circumpolar language families in the
Northern Hemisphere show evidence of relationship through common descent or borrowing in the basic vocabulary:
[Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Nivkh]; [Yukaghir, Samoyedic]; and [Yeniseian, Na-Dene, Burushaski]. The former two pairs showed the most
significant signals of language relationship. Our findings further support some hypotheses on long-distance language relationships
previously put forward based on linguistic methods but lacking universal acceptance.
Keywords: Circumpolar languages, permutation test, Chukotian-Itelmen, Nivkh, Samoyedic-Yukaghir, Dene-Yeniseian, Burushaski
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Materials and methods
- 3.Results
- 4.Discussion
- Online supplement
- Acknowledgements
-
References
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