Evaluating historical data (wordlists) in the case of bolivian extinct languages

Abstract

Abstract This article advocates the reanalysis of historical data on extinct languages in the view of our current knowledge on the grammatical characteristics of possibly related languages.The example given here is a corpus of eight Arawakan languages of Bolivia, of which four are already extinct (Apolista, Joaquiniano, Paikoneka, Saraveka). Even though there are only wordlists available for these extinct languages, it is possible to analyze the data in the light of Arawakan grammar.Those aspects that can be excerpted from all data are taken as typological features in a questionnaire used for phylogenetic analyses. The graphs that result from the feature analysis deliver evidence for certain relations between the languages and those that are still spoken today, which again gives us some idea about the migration of the Arawakan languages, in general.

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