Darwin-L Message Log 8:17 (April 1994)

Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

This is one message from the Archives of Darwin-L (1993–1997), a professional discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.

Note: Additional publications on evolution and the historical sciences by the Darwin-L list owner are available on SSRN.

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<8:17>From BENEDICT@VAX.CS.HSCSYR.EDU  Thu Apr  7 13:37:17 1994

Date: Thu, 07 Apr 1994 15:35:03 -0500 (EST)
From: BENEDICT@VAX.CS.HSCSYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Distance method for linguistics
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

What I'd do is get a sound analysis program, like Canary from Cornell U. Lab
of Ornithology, load up the recordings, and do a spectral correlation. Once I
have sounds that are "homologous" (and I got homology by "saying the same
thing in each language") all I'm interested in is some objective means of
specifying how different/similar they are. Talk to electrical engineers who do
more of this stuff than I about the gory details. As I said I'm not a
linguist. It's just an idea to chew on.

Paul DeBenedictis
SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse

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