Article published in:
Language Contact and Change in the Americas: Studies in honor of Marianne Mithun
Edited by Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker, Diane M. Hintz and Carmen Jany
[Studies in Language Companion Series 173] 2016
► pp. 247–272

Language documentation and historical linguistics

| University of Hawai‘i Manoa
This paper examines the relationship between language documentation, especially documentation of endangered languages, and historical linguistics. It address the questions, why is language documentation important to historical linguistics? and what can historical linguistics contribute to language documentation? Several ways in which the two are interconnected, mutually supportive, and together contribute to linguistics generally are discussed, illustrated by examples from a number of indigenous languages of the Americas.
Keywords: endangered languages, historical linguistics, language documentation
Published online: 19 April 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.173.11cam
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