# Computational Historical Linguistics

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.08099 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.08099/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 21 May 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [A New Framework for Fast Automated Phonological Reconstruction Using Trimmed Alignments and Sound Correspondence Patterns](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04619/) (2022)
- [Cognate Transformer for Automated Phonological Reconstruction and Cognate Reflex Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.07487/) (2023)
- [Generating Feature Vectors from Phonetic Transcriptions in Cross-Linguistic Data Formats](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.04271/) (2024)
- [Jambu: A historical linguistic database for South Asian languages](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.02514/) (2023)
- [A Likelihood Ratio Test of Genetic Relationship among Languages](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.00284/) (2024)
- [Approaching Reflex Predictions as a Classification Problem Using Extended Phonological Alignments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.09570/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Computational approaches to historical linguistics have been proposed since half a century. Within the last decade, this line of research has received a major boost, owing both to the transfer of ideas and software from computational biology and to the release of several large electronic data resources suitable for systematic comparative work. In this article, some of the central research topic of this new wave of computational historical linguistics are introduced and discussed. These are automatic assessment of genetic relatedness, automatic cognate detection, phylogenetic inference and ancestral state reconstruction. They will be demonstrated by means of a case study of automatically reconstructing a Proto-Romance word list from lexical data of 50 modern Romance languages and dialects.