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Glottochronology (Lexical Dating)/Evidence
Method evidence record

Glottochronology (Lexical Dating)

Glottochronology is Morris Swadesh's method for estimating the time depth at which two related languages separated, derived from the proportion of basic-vocabulary cognates they still share. Building directly on lexicostatistics, it adds a crucial extra assumption — a 'glottoclock' — that basic vocabulary is lost at an approximately constant rate over time, analogous to radioactive decay. Plugging the observed cognate proportion into a logarithmic decay formula yields an estimated separation date in years. The method is historically important but has been heavily criticized, and most historical linguists today treat its dates with great caution.

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Source record

Citations copied verbatim from the method’s source record. No claim-level verification is inferred from them.

Glottochronology (Lexical Dating)
Taxonomic method record · process-pipeline / linguistics
  • Swadesh, M. (1955). Towards greater accuracy in lexicostatistic dating. International Journal of American Linguistics, 21(2), 121–137. · DOI 10.1086/464321
  • Campbell, L. (2013). Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (3rd ed.). Edinburgh University Press. · ISBN 9780748675593
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Related methods

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Same method familyComparative Methodmachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.Same method familyComparative Method (Historical Linguistics)machine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.Taxonomic bucketLexicostatisticsmachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.Same method familyPhylogenetic Linguisticsmachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.

Evidence status

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Sources

2 recorded citations, copied from the method source record.

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