手法を比較

	Lexicostatistics	Comparative Method (Historical Linguistics)
分野	言語学	言語学
系統	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
提唱年	1952	1861
提唱者	Morris Swadesh	Neogrammarians (Karl Brugmann, August Schleicher; building on Rasmus Rask, Jacob Grimm, Franz Bopp)
種類	Quantitative comparison of basic vocabulary to estimate genealogical relatedness	Systematic comparison of cognates to reconstruct a proto-language and establish genetic relationship
原典	Swadesh, M. (1952). Lexico-statistic dating of prehistoric ethnic contacts. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 96(4), 452–463.	Campbell, L. (2013). Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (3rd ed.). Edinburgh University Press. ISBN: 9780748675593
別名	Lexical Statistics, Basic Vocabulary Comparison, Cognate Percentage Method	Comparative Reconstruction, Comparative Linguistic Reconstruction, Method of Comparative Reconstruction
関連	4	4
概要	Lexicostatistics is a quantitative method in historical linguistics that gauges how closely two or more languages are genealogically related by measuring the percentage of cognates they share within a fixed list of basic, culture-neutral vocabulary — classically Morris Swadesh's 100- or 200-word list. By converting word comparisons into similarity percentages, it produces a matrix of pairwise scores from which subgroupings within a language family can be inferred. It is the statistical core that underlies glottochronology, but on its own it makes no claim about absolute dates — it speaks only to degree of relatedness.	The comparative method is the foundational technique of historical linguistics for demonstrating that languages are genetically related and for reconstructing their unattested common ancestor. By systematically comparing cognate words across related languages and uncovering the regular, recurring sound correspondences between them — exemplified by Grimm's Law in Germanic — analysts reconstruct the forms of the proto-language and the sound changes that produced each daughter, and on that basis build the family tree. It is a qualitative, evidence-driven method distinct from the generic logic of cross-case comparison: here the 'comparison' is of linguistic forms governed by the regularity of sound change.