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Lexicostatistics: A Critique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Harry Hoijer
Harry Hoijer*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

1. Morris Swadesh, in a series of articles recently published, has described a method for dating the time of first separation of genetically related languages. The method, which he calls lexicostatistics or glottochronology, is said to provide ‘a time dimension for ethnic contacts shown by linguistic relationships’ (1955.121). The precision of this ‘time dimension’ is not easy to determine, but Swadesh claims (1955.123–4) that

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 32 , Issue 1: January-March , March 1956 , pp. 49 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © 1956 by the Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 The articles are listed in IJAL 21.121 (1955). I shall refer to only two: Lexico-statistic dating of prehistoric ethnic contacts, Proc. Am. Philos. Soc. 96.452–63 (1952); Toward greater accuracy in lexicostatistic dating, IJAL 21.121–37 (1955). These papers will be referred to by their dates.

2 Handbook of American Indian languages 1.41, Introduction (BAE, Bull. 40; Washington, 1911).

3 Berard Haile, A stem vocabulary of the Navaho language: Navaho-English and English-Navaho (1951). Eng.-Nav. 258.

4 Op.cit., Naν.-Eng. 207.

5 Op.cit., Eng.-Nav. 18.

6 Op.cit., Eng.-Nav. 99–101.

7 From my own field notes.

8 From Edward Sapir's field notes.

9 Fang-kuei Li, A list of Chipewyan stems, IJAL 7.122–51 (1933).

10 Edward Sapir, Conceptual categories in primitive languages, Science 74.578 (1931).