方法对比

	Comparative Method (Historical Linguistics)	Lexicostatistics
领域	语言学	语言学
方法族	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
起源年份	1861	1952
提出者	Neogrammarians (Karl Brugmann, August Schleicher; building on Rasmus Rask, Jacob Grimm, Franz Bopp)	Morris Swadesh
类型	Systematic comparison of cognates to reconstruct a proto-language and establish genetic relationship	Quantitative comparison of basic vocabulary to estimate genealogical relatedness
开创性文献	Campbell, L. (2013). Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (3rd ed.). Edinburgh University Press. ISBN: 9780748675593	Swadesh, M. (1952). Lexico-statistic dating of prehistoric ethnic contacts. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 96(4), 452–463.
别名	Comparative Reconstruction, Comparative Linguistic Reconstruction, Method of Comparative Reconstruction	Lexical Statistics, Basic Vocabulary Comparison, Cognate Percentage Method
相关	4	4
摘要	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.	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.