Evaluating historical data (wordlists) in the case of bolivian extinct languages
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Swintha Danielsen
Abstract
This article advocates the reanalysis of historical data on extinct languages in the view of our current knowledge on the grammatical characteristics of possibly related languages.The example given here is a corpus of eight Arawakan languages of Bolivia, of which four are already extinct (Apolista, Joaquiniano, Paikoneka, Saraveka). Even though there are only wordlists available for these extinct languages, it is possible to analyze the data in the light of Arawakan grammar.Those aspects that can be excerpted from all data are taken as typological features in a questionnaire used for phylogenetic analyses. The graphs that result from the feature analysis deliver evidence for certain relations between the languages and those that are still spoken today, which again gives us some idea about the migration of the Arawakan languages, in general.
© 2013 Akademie Verlag GmbH, Markgrafenstr. 12-14, 10969 Berlin.
Articles in the same Issue
- Inhalt
- Preface
- Vocabulario enla lengua castellano, la del ynga y xebera
- A look at the rokorona language
- Evaluating historical data (wordlists) in the case of bolivian extinct languages
- Lengua de los llanos: a northern valley yokuts catechism from misión santa cruz, alta california
- The nootka and sandwich vocabularies in the relación de la entrada de san lorenzo de nutka (1789)
Articles in the same Issue
- Inhalt
- Preface
- Vocabulario enla lengua castellano, la del ynga y xebera
- A look at the rokorona language
- Evaluating historical data (wordlists) in the case of bolivian extinct languages
- Lengua de los llanos: a northern valley yokuts catechism from misión santa cruz, alta california
- The nootka and sandwich vocabularies in the relación de la entrada de san lorenzo de nutka (1789)
