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This research is built on some pretty shaky ground—including some very loaded picking-and-choosing of vocabulary—and because it doesn't have very strong predict
by andolanra 5y ago
This research is built on some pretty shaky ground—including some very loaded picking-and-choosing of vocabulary—and because it doesn't have very strong predictive power, hasn't made much of a dent in the community in the last decade since it's been published. Here's a discussion from the blog Language Log that discusses a lot of the methodological problems that show up: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4612 https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4612
- ummonk 5y agoAside from the specific details, I feel like papers of this nature would be on much firmer ground if they included controls. In this case for example, that would mean showing that are greater word-correspondences in these eurasian language families than with other language families.
- mcswell 5y agoNuts, you beat me to it; I was going to provide that exact same link, together with an excerpt from a comment: "The LWED database reconstructions just aren't good enough to form the basis of a successful effort along those lines." Here's another relevant post at Language Log: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4634 https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4634. (Before anyone gets too excited, notice the "filed under" terms.)
- topaz0 5y agoI remember that languagelog post. Some great critique in there.