Language 'time machine' a Rosetta stone for lost tongues

cnet ^ | February 12, 2013 | Leslie Katz

[BenLurkin]

The program, a linguistic time machine of sorts, can quickly crunch data on some of the earliest-known "proto-languages" that gave rise to modern languages such as Hawaiian, Javanese, Malay, Tagalog, and others spoken in Southeast Asia, parts of continental Asia, Australasia, and the Pacific.

The speed and scale of the work is key here, as proto-languages are typically reconstructed through a timely and painstaking manual process that involves comparing two or more languages that hail from a shared ancestor.

"What excites me about this system is that it takes so many of the great ideas that linguists have had about historical reconstruction, and it automates them at a new scale: more data, more words, more languages, but less time," says Dan Klein, an associate professor of computer science at UC Berkeley and co-author of a paper on the system published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The program relies on an algorithm known as the Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler to examine hundreds of modern Austronesian languages for words of common ancestry from thousands of years back. The computational model is based on the established linguistic theory that words evolve as if along the branches of a genealogical tree

[Perdogg]

ping

[BenLurkin]

gnip

[GeronL]

I would still rank alphabets as the top invention

[TigersEye]

Yo, homes. Fo shizzle!

[ClearCase_guy]

Markov chain Monte Carlo

(MC)²

[ckilmer]

They didn’t mention what kinds of connections and discoveries they were able to make with the new program.

[Oratam]

I thought of Tolkien the moment I read this.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

I thought of Tolkien the moment I read this.

As well you should...

Regards,
Gandalf

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks BenLurkin and Perdogg. This is somewhat related to a couple of earlier automated attempts at translations, but I'm going to bed rather than hunt down the links. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[sauron]

I'm thinking of you, too, Mithrandir the Meddlesome!

Signed,

Sauron of Mordor a.k.a. Gorthaur

[sauron]

I'm thinking of you, too, Mithrandir the Meddlesome!

Signed,

Sauron of Mordor a.k.a. Gorthaur

[sauron]

I'm thinking of you, too, Mithrandir the Meddlesome!

Signed,

Sauron of Mordor a.k.a. Gorthaur

[colorado tanker]

These are cunning linguists, indeed.