Søren Wichmann
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 109168 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Søren Wichmann |
| NOMBRES | Søren |
| APELLIDO | Wichmann |
| FIRMA | WICHMANN S |
| AFILIACIONES | Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3257-3087 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 51 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 185 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 47 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 4 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1993 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 8 |
Impact of ecology, subsistence, and climate on language spread rates
Withdrawn
Different languages occupy every region of the globe. How fast have languages spread and what are the factors systematically impacting these rates? Based on state-of-the-art methods and data from more than 5,500 languages this paper reconstructs the movements of prehistorical languages, analyzing more than 2,500 language diffusion events. Up until 2000 BP diffusion rates are typically low (0.1-0.3 km/yr). Subsequently all world areas except North…
Mapping Place Names
This paper demonstrates how to leverage the GeoNames data for seeking patterns in toponymic data using the software package ‘toponym’, which we wrote for the R computational environment. After discussing a distinction between particularistic and pattern-seeking approaches to toponymics, we go on to characterize the data of GeoNames, which are particularly appropriate for the latter type of approach. Then, we present two cases studies. The first c…
Note on the ‘toponym’ R Package
In this note, we describe how to install and use the ‘toponym’ R package, which is designed for mapping and manipulating toponymic data from the GeoNames database. This introduction will allow even unexperienced users of R to efficiently produce maps and perform simple analyses
Languages in China link climate, voice quality, and tone in a causal chain
Are the sound systems of languages ecologically adaptive like other aspects of human behavior? In previous substantive explorations of the climate–language nexus, the hypothesis that desiccation affects the tone systems of languages was not well supported. The lack of analysis of voice quality data from natural speech undermines the credibility of the following two key premises: the compromised voice quality caused by desiccated ambient air and c…
The halfway similarity avoidance rule replicated using phonetic data from European language varieties
Previous work using lexical data from around the world has suggested that distances between language varieties are distributed such that varieties are typically either rather similar, qualifying as dialects of the same language, or rather dissimilar, qualifying as different languages, with a scarcity of varieties that are around halfway similar. Using a potentially biased sample, Wichmann (2019) observed that there is a bimodal distribution of di…
Phonetic differences between nouns and verbs in their typical syntactic positions in a tonal language
Migration of Alpine Slavs and machine learning
The rapid expansion of the Slavic speakers in the second half of the first millennium CE remains a controversial topic in archaeology, and academic passions on the issue have long run high. Currently, there are three main hypotheses for this expansion. The aim of this paper was to test the so-called “hybrid hypothesis,” which states that the movement of people, cultural diffusion and language diffusion all occurred simultaneously. For this purpos…
Indo-European cereal terminology suggests a Northwest Pontic homeland for the core Indo-European languages
Questions on the timing and the center of the Indo-European language dispersal are central to debates on the formation of the European and Asian linguistic landscapes and are deeply intertwined with questions on the archaeology and population history of these continents. Recent palaeogenomic studies support scenarios in which the core Indo-European languages spread with the expansion of Early Bronze Age Yamnaya herders that originally inhabited t…
The extent and degree of utterance-final word lengthening in spontaneous speech from 10 languages
Words in utterance-final positions are often pronounced more slowly than utterance-medial words, as previous studies on individual languages have shown. This paper provides a systematic cross-linguistic comparison of relative durations of final and penultimate words in utterances in terms of the degree to which such words are lengthened. The study uses time-aligned corpora from 10 genealogically, areally, and culturally diverse languages, includi…
Harmony Rules and the Suffix Domain
In 2004, Lacadena and Wichmann proposed a set of orthographic rules for the Maya script. The choice of using one of three different patterns of syn- or disharmonic spellings allowed Maya scribes to signal whether word-final syllables contained a short vowel, a long vowel or a glottal stop. In our earlier paper we focused on the lexical evidence for these orthographic «harmony rules». Although it was stated that the rules apply equally well when a…
How to Distinguish Languages and Dialects
The terms “language” and “dialect” are ingrained, but linguists nevertheless tend to agree that it is impossible to apply a non-arbitrary distinction such that two speech varieties can be identified as either distinct languages or two dialects of one and the same language. A database of lexical information for more than 7,500 speech varieties, however, unveils a strong tendency for linguistic distances to be bimodally distributed. For a given lan…
Sprog og rumlig orientering i livsverdenen
The article claims that language and culture should not be studied separately. Examples from linguistic expressions of space in Danish, Hopi, Yutatec Maya, and Tlapanec are drawn upon to support this view. In Danish, different lexical items describing domestic space are introduced into discourse by different prepositions according to a system revolving around integration and centrality that seems to reflect actual behaviour. It is suggested that …
Modeling language family expansions
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 p…
Texistepec Popoluca
Linguistic Clues to Iroquoian Prehistory
This paper employs a quantitative analysis of lexical data to generate a tree describing the historical relationships among Iroquoian languages. An alternative to glottochronology is used to estimate the timing of branching events within the tree. We estimate the homeland of the language family using lexical and geographic distance measures and then compare this estimate with homeland determinations in the literature. Our results suggest that Pro…
Quantifying Language Dynamics
Quantifying Language Dynamics: On the Cutting Edge of Areal and Phylogenetic Linguistics contains specially-selected papers introducing new, quantitative methodologies for understanding language interaction and evolution. It draws upon data from the phonologies, morphologies, numeral systems, constituent orders, case systems, and lexicons of the world’s languages, bringing large datasets and sophisticated statistical techniques to bear on fundame…
Arguments and Adjuncts Cross-Linguistically
This volume is intended to clarify the utility of the notions of arguments and adjuncts for linguistic theory. It brings together papers that reflect current thinking on the distinction and brings crosslinguistic evidence to bear on its relevance
The Paleobiolinguistics of the Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L)
Paleobiolinguistics is used to determine when and where the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) developed significance for prehistoric groups of Native America. Dates and locations of proto-languages for which common bean terms reconstruct generally accord with crop-origin and dispersal information from plant genetics and archaeobotany. Paleobiolinguistic and other lines of evidence indicate that human interest in the common bean became significa…
The Paleobiolinguistics of Maize (Zea mays L)
Paleobiolinguistics is used to determine when and where maize (Zea mays) developed significance for different prehistoric groups of Native America. Dates and locations of proto-languages for which maize terms reconstruct generally accord with crop-origin and dispersal information from plant genetics and archaeobotany. Paleobiolinguistic and other lines of evidence indicate that human interest in maize was extensive millennia before the widespread…
Chitimacha
The comparative method of historical linguistics is carefully applied to the hypothesis that Chitimacha, a language of southern Louisiana now without fully fluent speakers, and languages of the Totozoquean family of Mesoamerica are genealogically related. Ninety-one lexical sets comparing Chitimacha words collected by Swadesh (1939; 1946a; 1950) to words reconstructed for Proto-Totozoquean (Brown et al. 2011) show regular sound correspondences. A…
He'm ¢i¢imat, 'La Chichimeca'
The paper presents a transcription and Spanish translation of a folktale in Sierra Popoluca, a Mixe- Zoquean language spoken in Southern Veracruz, in the municipio of Soteapan. Published texts in this language are very scarce, so the text may serve as a resource for future studies. The text was dictated to Salomé Gutiérrez Morales, a trained linguist as well as native speaker, by his close relative Jesús Gutiérrez from the village of Amamaloya. I…
Sound Correspondences in the World's Languages
Sound Correspondences in the World's Languages
An automated sound correspondence-recognition program developed by the authors is applied to a data set consisting of standardized word lists for over half of the world's languages. Online appendices present the results in a compendium of 692 recurrent sound correspondences that contains information about the frequency of occurrence of each correspondence. Applications of the compendium to historical linguistics are proposed. For example, the cat…
The Paleobiolinguistics of Domesticated Chili Pepper (Capsicum spp)
Paleobiolinguistics employs the comparative method of historical linguistics to reconstruct the biodiversity known to human groups of the remote, unrecorded past. Comparison of words for biological species from languages of the same language family facilitates reconstruction of the biological vocabulary of the family's ancient proto-language. This study uses paleobiolinguistics to establish where and when chili peppers (Capsicum spp.) developed s…
Automated Dating of the World's Language Families Based on Lexical Similarity
This paper describes a computerized alternative to glottochronology for estimating elapsed time since parent languages diverged into daughter languages. The method, developed by the Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) consortium, is different from glottochronology in four major respects: (1) it is automated and thus is more objective, (2) it applies a uniform analytical approach to a single database of worldwide languages, (3) it is base…
Cacao and Chocolate
The origin of the words $lsquo;cacao$rsquo; and $lsquo;chocolate$rsquo; and their use in the reconstruction of the early history of Mesoamerica, remain very controversial issues. Cambell and Kaufman (1976, American Antiquity 41:80–89), for example, proposed that the word $lsquo;cacao$rsquo; originated from Mixe–Zoque languages, thus possibly representing Olmec traditions. According to this argument, other Mesoamerican languages, including Nahuatl…
Lightning Warrior
Life at the Crossroads: Quirigua before K'ak' Tiliw *2. A Restive Vassal: The Early Reign of K'ak' Tiliw *3. Rebellion and Revival: The First Stelae of K'ak' Tiliw *4. Dreams of Power: Stelae F, D, and E *5. Foundation of the Cosmic House: Stelae C and A and Zoomorph B *6. In Honor of a Great Warrior: The Legacy of K'ak' Tiliw * Appendix A. Rulers of Quirigua * Appendix B. Historical Events Recorded in the Texts of Quirigua * Appendix C. Selected…
Mayan Historical Linguistics and Epigraphy
Recent years have seen rapid advancement in our understanding of the phonology and grammar of Classic Ch'olan and the distribution of Lowland Mayan languages in the Classic period. The control over the data has advanced to such an extent that Classic Ch'olan should no longer be considered chiefly a product of reconstruction, but rather a language in its own right, providing fresh input to historical reconstruction. The interpretation of writing s…
Proto-Mayan Syllable Nuclei
Although many aspects of the historical phonology of Mayan languages have been worked out, development of the syllable nuclei of words has received insufficient attention. A tabulation of correspondence sets with subsequent identifications of conditioned reflexes reveals the necessity for reconstructing at least ten different Proto‐Mayan syllable nuclei (including a sequence of a vowel followed by a velar fricative whose reflexes often pattern as…
Population Size and Rates of Language Change
Previous empirical studies of population size and language change have produced equivocal results. We therefore address the question with a new set of lexical data from nearly one-half of the world's languages. We first show that relative population sizes of modern languages can be extrapolated to ancestral languages, albeit with diminishing accuracy, up to several thousand years into the past. We then test for an effect of population against the…
Adding typology to lexicostatistics
The ASJP project aims at establishing relationships between languages on the basis of the Swadesh word list. For this purpose, lists have been collected and phonologically transcribed for almost 3,500 languages. Using a method based on the algorithm proposed by Levenshtein (Cybernetics and Control Theory 10: 707-710, 1966), a custom-made computer program calculates the distances between all pairs of languages in the database. Standard software is…
The Paleobiolinguistics of Domesticated Chili Pepper (Capsicum spp)
Paleobiolinguistics employs the comparative method of historical linguistics to reconstruct the biodiversity known to human groups of the remote, unrecorded past. Comparison of words for biological species from languages of the same language family facilitates reconstruction of the biological vocabulary of the family's ancient proto-language. This study uses paleobiolinguistics to establish where and when chili peppers (Capsicum spp.) developed s…
The Paleobiolinguistics of Maize (Zea mays L)
Paleobiolinguistics is used to determine when and where maize (Zea mays) developed significance for different prehistoric groups of Native America. Dates and locations of proto-languages for which maize terms reconstruct generally accord with crop-origin and dispersal information from plant genetics and archaeobotany. Paleobiolinguistic and other lines of evidence indicate that human interest in maize was extensive millennia before the widespread…
The Paleobiolinguistics of Domesticated Manioc (Manihot esculenta)
Paleobiolinguistics is used to identify on maps where and when manioc (Manihot esculenta) developed importance for different prehistoric groups of Native Americans. This information indicates, among other things, that significant interest in manioc developed at least a millennium before a village-farming way of life became widespread in the New World
On the power-law distribution of language family sizes
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 1, 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…
The Paleobiolinguistics of the Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L)
Paleobiolinguistics is used to determine when and where the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) developed significance for prehistoric groups of Native America. Dates and locations of proto-languages for which common bean terms reconstruct generally accord with crop-origin and dispersal information from plant genetics and archaeobotany. Paleobiolinguistic and other lines of evidence indicate that human interest in the common bean became significa…
Chitimacha
The comparative method of historical linguistics is carefully applied to the hypothesis that Chitimacha, a language of southern Louisiana now without fully fluent speakers, and languages of the Totozoquean family of Mesoamerica are genealogically related. Ninety-one lexical sets comparing Chitimacha words collected by Swadesh (1939; 1946a; 1950) to words reconstructed for Proto-Totozoquean (Brown et al. 2011) show regular sound correspondences. A…
Sound Correspondences in the World's Languages
An automated sound correspondence-recognition program developed by the authors is applied to a data set consisting of standardized word lists for over half of the world's languages. Online appendices present the results in a compendium of 692 recurrent sound correspondences that contains information about the frequency of occurrence of each correspondence. Applications of the compendium to historical linguistics are proposed. For example, the cat…
Totozoquean
This paper uses the comparative method of historical linguistics to investigate the hypothesis that languages of two well-established families of Mesoamerica, Totonacan and Mixe-Zoquean, are related in a larger genetic grouping dubbed Totozoquean. Proposed cognate sets comparing words reconstructed for Proto-Totonacan (PTn) and Proto-Mixe-Zoquean (PMZ) show regular sound correspondences attesting to the descent of these two languages from Proto-T…
Typological feature analysis models linguistic geography
Dunn and colleagues (2008) describe and exemplify the use of sophisticated analyses of abstract structural features to reconstruct language histories. The techniques that they use do show some clustering in the groups of languages that they examine; Dunn et al. state that they 'tend to favor a phylogenetic origin for the signal of relatedness' (p. 748), and that the results of their test case 'show a close degree of correspondence to the existing…
How to Distinguish Languages and Dialects
The terms “language” and “dialect” are ingrained, but linguists nevertheless tend to agree that it is impossible to apply a non-arbitrary distinction such that two speech varieties can be identified as either distinct languages or two dialects of one and the same language. A database of lexical information for more than 7,500 speech varieties, however, unveils a strong tendency for linguistic distances to be bimodally distributed. For a given lan…
The Emerging Field of Language Dynamics
Large linguistic databases, especially databases having a global coverage, such as the World Atlas of Language Structures, the Automated Similarity Judgment Program, and Ethnologue, are making it possible to systematically investigate many aspects of how languages change and compete for viability. Agent-based computer simulations supplement such empirical data by analyzing the necessary and sufficient parameters for the current global distributio…
A computer simulation of language families
This paper presents computer simulations of language populations and the development of language families, showing how a simple model can lead to distributions similar to those observed empirically by Wichmann (2005) and others. The model combines features of two models used in earlier work for the simulation of competition among languages: the ‘Viviane’ model for the migration of peoples and the propagation of languages, and the ‘Schulze’ model,…
Referential practice. Language and lived space among the Maya
Referential practice. Language and lived space among the Maya
Langage et pertinence
Language and Culture in Native North America
Matthew Restall
Anmeldes af Søren Wichmann
Cacao and Chocolate
The origin of the words $lsquo;cacao$rsquo; and $lsquo;chocolate$rsquo; and their use in the reconstruction of the early history of Mesoamerica, remain very controversial issues. Cambell and Kaufman (1976, American Antiquity 41:80–89), for example, proposed that the word $lsquo;cacao$rsquo; originated from Mixe–Zoque languages, thus possibly representing Olmec traditions. According to this argument, other Mesoamerican languages, including Nahuatl…
Proto-Mayan Syllable Nuclei
Although many aspects of the historical phonology of Mayan languages have been worked out, development of the syllable nuclei of words has received insufficient attention. A tabulation of correspondence sets with subsequent identifications of conditioned reflexes reveals the necessity for reconstructing at least ten different Proto‐Mayan syllable nuclei (including a sequence of a vowel followed by a velar fricative whose reflexes often pattern as…
On the power-law distribution of language family sizes
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 1, 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…
Mayan Historical Linguistics and Epigraphy
Recent years have seen rapid advancement in our understanding of the phonology and grammar of Classic Ch'olan and the distribution of Lowland Mayan languages in the Classic period. The control over the data has advanced to such an extent that Classic Ch'olan should no longer be considered chiefly a product of reconstruction, but rather a language in its own right, providing fresh input to historical reconstruction. The interpretation of writing s…
The reference-tracking system of Tlapanec
This paper presents data on the Azoyú Tlapanec reference tracking system. The system is analyzed according to a procedure where default rules for how the system works are formulated and deviations are interpreted as being licensed by different levels of grammar organization along the lines of the local-global parameter proposed by Comrie (1989). The system is compared to its closest common typological congeners, obviation and switch-reference. Al…
How to use typological databases in historical linguistic research
Several databases have been compiled with the aim of documenting the distribution of typological features across the world’s languages. This paper looks at ways of utilizing this type of data for making inferences concerning genealogical relationships by using phylogenetic algorithms originally developed for biologists. The focus is on methodology, including how to assess the stability of individual typological features and the suitability of dif…
Lightning Warrior
Life at the Crossroads: Quirigua before K'ak' Tiliw *2. A Restive Vassal: The Early Reign of K'ak' Tiliw *3. Rebellion and Revival: The First Stelae of K'ak' Tiliw *4. Dreams of Power: Stelae F, D, and E *5. Foundation of the Cosmic House: Stelae C and A and Zoomorph B *6. In Honor of a Great Warrior: The Legacy of K'ak' Tiliw * Appendix A. Rulers of Quirigua * Appendix B. Historical Events Recorded in the Texts of Quirigua * Appendix C. Selected…
Teaching & Learning Guide for
Author's Introduction The field of language dynamics encompasses the study and modeling of how languages develop (language evolution), change, and interact (language competition). It contrasts with traditional historical linguistics in several ways: the focus is on the world's linguistic diversity rather than just on specific languages or language families; methods are quantitative rather than qualitative; computer simulations are employed for el…
A computer simulation of language families
This paper presents computer simulations of language populations and the development of language families, showing how a simple model can lead to distributions similar to those observed empirically by Wichmann (2005) and others. The model combines features of two models used in earlier work for the simulation of competition among languages: the ‘Viviane’ model for the migration of peoples and the propagation of languages, and the ‘Schulze’ model,…
The Emerging Field of Language Dynamics
Large linguistic databases, especially databases having a global coverage, such as the World Atlas of Language Structures, the Automated Similarity Judgment Program, and Ethnologue, are making it possible to systematically investigate many aspects of how languages change and compete for viability. Agent-based computer simulations supplement such empirical data by analyzing the necessary and sufficient parameters for the current global distributio…
Population Size and Rates of Language Change
Previous empirical studies of population size and language change have produced equivocal results. We therefore address the question with a new set of lexical data from nearly one-half of the world's languages. We first show that relative population sizes of modern languages can be extrapolated to ancestral languages, albeit with diminishing accuracy, up to several thousand years into the past. We then test for an effect of population against the…
Adding typology to lexicostatistics
The ASJP project aims at establishing relationships between languages on the basis of the Swadesh word list. For this purpose, lists have been collected and phonologically transcribed for almost 3,500 languages. Using a method based on the algorithm proposed by Levenshtein (Cybernetics and Control Theory 10: 707-710, 1966), a custom-made computer program calculates the distances between all pairs of languages in the database. Standard software is…
Languages and dialects represented in the study. Appendix B to Homelands of the world’s language families. A quantitative approach
Maps for all language families sampled. Appendix A to Homelands of the world’s language families
Homelands of the world’s language families
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…
Correlates of Reticulation in Linguistic Phylogenies
This paper discusses phylogenetic reticulation using linguistic data from the Automated Similarity Judgment Program or ASJP (Holman et al., 2008; Wichmann et al., 2010a). It contributes methodologically to the examination of two measures of reticulation in distance-based phylogenetic data, specifically the δ score of Holland et al. (2002) and the more recent Q -residuals of Gray et al. (2010). It is shown that the δ score is a more adequate measu…
Totozoquean
This paper uses the comparative method of historical linguistics to investigate the hypothesis that languages of two well-established families of Mesoamerica, Totonacan and Mixe-Zoquean, are related in a larger genetic grouping dubbed Totozoquean. Proposed cognate sets comparing words reconstructed for Proto-Totonacan (PTn) and Proto-Mixe-Zoquean (PMZ) show regular sound correspondences attesting to the descent of these two languages from Proto-T…
Typological feature analysis models linguistic geography
Dunn and colleagues (2008) describe and exemplify the use of sophisticated analyses of abstract structural features to reconstruct language histories. The techniques that they use do show some clustering in the groups of languages that they examine; Dunn et al. state that they 'tend to favor a phylogenetic origin for the signal of relatedness' (p. 748), and that the results of their test case 'show a close degree of correspondence to the existing…
Automated Dating of the World's Language Families Based on Lexical Similarity
This paper describes a computerized alternative to glottochronology for estimating elapsed time since parent languages diverged into daughter languages. The method, developed by the Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) consortium, is different from glottochronology in four major respects: (1) it is automated and thus is more objective, (2) it applies a uniform analytical approach to a single database of worldwide languages, (3) it is base…
Preliminary material
He'm ¢i¢imat, 'La Chichimeca'
The paper presents a transcription and Spanish translation of a folktale in Sierra Popoluca, a Mixe- Zoquean language spoken in Southern Veracruz, in the municipio of Soteapan. Published texts in this language are very scarce, so the text may serve as a resource for future studies. The text was dictated to Salomé Gutiérrez Morales, a trained linguist as well as native speaker, by his close relative Jesús Gutiérrez from the village of Amamaloya. I…
Linguistics (37 obras) · Computer Science (28 obras) · Philosophy (26 obras) · History (20 obras) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (20 obras) · Language and cultural evolution (18 obras) · Archaeology (16 obras) · Sociology (16 obras) · Geography (12 obras) · Philosophy (11 obras)