The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics

2008/01/01 by Simon J. Greenhill, Robert Blust, Russell D. Gray · 4 citations
Social Sciences · Computer Science · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Language and cultural evolution #Natural Language Processing Techniques #Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies #Computer science #Vocabulary #Data science #Genetic data #Comparative method #Controlled vocabulary #Linguistics #Artificial intelligence

paper · pdf · doi:10.4137/ebo.s893

openalex publication_date 2008/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07

Abstract

Phylogenetic methods have revolutionised evolutionary biology and have recently been applied to studies of linguistic and cultural evolution. However, the basic comparative data on the languages of the world required for these analyses is often widely dispersed in hard to obtain sources. Here we outline how our Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database (ABVD) helps remedy this situation by collating wordlists from over 500 languages into one web-accessible database. We describe the technology underlying the ABVD and discuss the benefits that an evolutionary bioinformatic approach can provide. These include facilitating computational comparative linguistic research, answering questions about human prehistory, enabling syntheses with genetic data, and safe-guarding fragile linguistic information.

Citations

• World Atlas of Language Structures
• Solomon Islands languages: An internal classification
• A Long Lost Sister of Proto-Austronesian?: Proto-Ongan, Mother of Jarawa and Onge of the Andaman Islands
• Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin
• Languages Evolve in Punctuational Bursts
• Pedagogical Reflections from an Instructional TechnologyWorkshop.
• Farmers and Their Languages: The First Expansions
• Matrilineality and the Melanesian Origin of Polynesian Y Chromosomes
• GenBank
• The Austronesians: Historical and Comparative Perspectives

Cited by

• Tongues on the EDGE: language preservation priorities based on threat and lexical distinctiveness
• The Historical Formation of a Macro-ecology: the Case of the Levant*
• Automated Dating of the World’s Language Families Based on Lexical Similarity
• Austronesian languages [wikipedia]

Related

• The shape and tempo of language evolution
• Evolutionary Linguistics
• Tongues on the EDGE: language preservation priorities based on threat and lexical distinctiveness
• Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement
• Automated languages phylogeny from Levenshtein distance