The Experts below are selected from a list of 9558 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Soren Wichmann - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Modeling Language Family expansions
Diachronica, 2017Co-Authors: Soren WichmannAbstract:This paper presents properties of a computer simulation of Language migration. It takes as input a simulated phylogeny and a database of today’s populated places. At each time step, a Language moves within a geographical quadrilateral defined by the minimal number, ch, of choices of populated places within the quadrilateral. The result is a constrained random walk defined by a combination of the ch parameter and the landscape, which comes into play via the restriction of the walk to populated places. The distribution of move distances is qualitatively similar across values of ch and resembles a Gamma distribution. Through comparisons with densities of real-world Language families, the values of ch which yield the closest fits between real and simulated data are found.
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Homelands of the world’s Language families
2012Co-Authors: Soren Wichmann, André Müller, Viveka VelupillaiAbstract:A systematic, computer-automated tool for narrowing down the homelands of linguistic families is presented and applied to 82 of the world’s larger families. The approach is inspired by the well-known idea that the geographical area of maximal diversity within a Language Family corresponds to the original homeland. This is implemented in an algorithm which takes a lexicostatistically derived distance measure and a geographical distance measure and computes a lexical diversity measure for each Language in the Family relative to all the other related Languages. The location of the Language with the highest diversity measure is heuristically identified with the homeland.
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cultural phylogenetics of the tupi Language Family in lowland south america
PLOS ONE, 2012Co-Authors: Robert S Walker, Soren Wichmann, Thomas Mailund, Curtis AtkissonAbstract:Background Recent advances in automated assessment of basic vocabulary lists allow the construction of linguistic phylogenies useful for tracing dynamics of human population expansions, reconstructing ancestral cultures, and modeling transition rates of cultural traits over time.
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Homelands of the world’s Language families: a quantitative approach
Diachronica, 2010Co-Authors: Soren Wichmann, André Müller, Viveka VelupillaiAbstract:A systematic, computer-automated tool for narrowing down the homelands of linguistic families is presented and applied to 82 of the world’s larger families. The approach is inspired by the well-known idea that the geographical area of maximal diversity within a Language Family corresponds to the original homeland. This is implemented in an algorithm which takes a lexicostatistically derived distance measure and a geographical distance measure and computes a lexical diversity measure for each Language in the Family relative to all the other related Languages. The location of the Language with the highest diversity measure is heuristically identified with the homeland.
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on the power law distribution of Language Family sizes
Journal of Linguistics, 2005Co-Authors: Soren WichmannAbstract:When the sizes of Language families of the world, measured by the number of Languages contained in each Family, are plotted in descending order on a diagram where the x-axis represents the place of each Family in the rank-order (the largest Family having rank I, the next-largest, rank 2, and so on) and the y-axis represents the number of Languages in the Family determining the rank-ordering, it is seen that the distribution closely approximates a curve defined by the formula y = ax - b . Such 'power-law' distributions are known to characterize a wide range of social, biological, and physical phenomena and are essentially of a stochastic nature. It is suggested that the apparent power-law distribution of Language Family sizes is of relevance when evaluating overall classifications of the world's Languages, for the analysis of taxonomic structures, for developing hypotheses concerning the prehistory of the world's Languages, and for modelling the future extinction of Language families.
Ramesh Rajan - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the influence of Language Family on academic performance in year 1 and 2 mbbs students
Medical Education, 2010Co-Authors: Collette Mann, Benedict J Canny, Jennifer Lindley, Ramesh RajanAbstract:Medical Education 2010: 44: 786–794 Objectives Generally, in most countries around the world, local medical students outperform, in an academic sense, international students. In an endeavour to understand if this effect is caused by Language proficiency skills, we investigated academic differences between local and international MBBS students categorised by native Language families. Methods Data were available and obtained for medical students in their first and second years of study in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006. Information on social demographics, personal history and Language(s) spoken at home was collected, as well as academic assessment results for each student. Statistical analysis was carried out with a dataset pertaining to a total of 872 students. Results Local students performed better than international students in first- (p < 0.001) as well as second-year (p < 0.001) assessments. In addition, there was a main interaction effect between Language Family and origin in the first year (p < 0.05). For international students only, there was a main effect for Language in the second year (p < 0.05), with students from Sino-Tibetan Language Family backgrounds obtaining higher mean scores than students from English or Indo-European Language Family backgrounds. Conclusions Our results confirmed that, overall, local students perform better academically than international students. However, given that Language Family differences exist, this may reflect acculturation rather than simply English Language skills.
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The influence of Language Family on academic performance in Year 1 and 2 MBBS students.
Medical Education, 2010Co-Authors: Collette Mann, Benedict J Canny, Jennifer Lindley, Ramesh RajanAbstract:Medical Education 2010: 44: 786–794 Objectives Generally, in most countries around the world, local medical students outperform, in an academic sense, international students. In an endeavour to understand if this effect is caused by Language proficiency skills, we investigated academic differences between local and international MBBS students categorised by native Language families. Methods Data were available and obtained for medical students in their first and second years of study in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006. Information on social demographics, personal history and Language(s) spoken at home was collected, as well as academic assessment results for each student. Statistical analysis was carried out with a dataset pertaining to a total of 872 students. Results Local students performed better than international students in first- (p
Zev Handel - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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what is sino tibetan snapshot of a field and a Language Family in flux
Language and Linguistics Compass, 2008Co-Authors: Zev HandelAbstract:Sino-Tibetan is one of the great Language families of the world, containing hundreds of Languages spoken by over 1 billion people, from Northeast India to the Southeast Asian peninsula. The best-known Languages in the Family are Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese. Although the existence of the Family has been recognized for nearly 200 years, significant progress in reconstructing the history of the Family was not achieved until the latter half of the twentieth century. In recent decades, this progress has accelerated, thanks to an explosion of new data and new approaches. At the same time, a number of interesting controversies have emerged in the field, centered on such issues as subgrouping and reconstruction methodology.
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What is Sino‐Tibetan? Snapshot of a Field and a Language Family in Flux
Language and Linguistics Compass, 2008Co-Authors: Zev HandelAbstract:Sino-Tibetan is one of the great Language families of the world, containing hundreds of Languages spoken by over 1 billion people, from Northeast India to the Southeast Asian peninsula. The best-known Languages in the Family are Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese. Although the existence of the Family has been recognized for nearly 200 years, significant progress in reconstructing the history of the Family was not achieved until the latter half of the twentieth century. In recent decades, this progress has accelerated, thanks to an explosion of new data and new approaches. At the same time, a number of interesting controversies have emerged in the field, centered on such issues as subgrouping and reconstruction methodology.
Susan E Kalt - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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spanish as a second Language when l1 is quechua endangered Languages and the sla researcher
Second Language Research, 2012Co-Authors: Susan E KaltAbstract:Spanish is one of the most widely spoken Languages in the world. Quechua is the largest indigenous Language Family to constitute the first Language (L1) of second Language (L2) Spanish speakers. De...
Randy J. Lapolla - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The origin and spread of the Sino-Tibetan Language Family
Nature, 2019Co-Authors: Randy J. LapollaAbstract:This Language Family originated in China in the Yellow River basin region. A robust computational approach with added finesse provides evidence to support the view that the Sino-Tibetan Languages arose in northern China and began to split into branches about 5,900 years ago.
