The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics
Greenhill, S.J., Blust. R, & Gray, R.D. (2008). The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics. Evolutionary Bioinformatics, 4:271-283.
Phylogenetic methods have revolutionised evolutionary biology and have recently been applied to studies of linguistic and cultural evolution. However, the basic comparative data on the languages of the world required for these analyses is often widely dispersed in hard to obtain sources. Here we outline how our Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database (ABVD) helps remedy this situation by collating wordlists from over 500 languages into one web-accessible database. We describe the technology underlying the ABVD and discuss the benefits that an evolutionary bioinformatic approach can provide. These include facilitating computational comparative linguistic research, answering questions about human prehistory, enabling syntheses with genetic data, and safe-guarding fragile linguistic information.
- Austronesian language phylogenies: myths and misconceptions about Bayesian computational methods
- Matrilocal residence is ancestral in Austronesian societies
- Testing Population Dispersal Hypotheses: Pacific Settlement, Phylogenetic Trees, and Austronesian Languages
- The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics
- How Accurate and Robust Are the Phylogenetic Estimates of Austronesian Language Relationships?
- The Pleasures and Perils of Darwinizing Culture (with phylogenies)
- Does horizontal transmission invalidate cultural phylogenies?
- Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement
- Rise and fall of political complexity in island South-East Asia and the Pacific.
- Pushing the time barrier in the quest for language roots