lexicostatistics

Lexicostatistics, a controversial method for studying word replacement in relation to subgrouping, often distinguishes a subset of terms called “basic vocabulary.” Lists of basic vocabulary words typically include those for body parts, terms for everyday natural phenomena (sky, wind, rain, sun, star, earth, stone, water,…

…method, or glottochronology (also called lexicostatistics, a method for estimating the approximate date when two or more languages separated from a common parent language, using statistics to compare similarities and differences in vocabulary), very little work has been done. Consequently, the difference between a dialect and language on the one…