Language as a Window on Prehistory

语言是人类的基础，但人们对语言如何随时间变化或人类社会的其他方面可能如何与语言一起变化知之甚少。语言是研究过去的重要工具。虽然考古学和遗传学也是研究文化如何变化的宝贵方法，但在许多领域，语言为过去的接触、迁徙和文化变化提供了更好保存的证据。以前的大量工作已经表明，语言会随着时间的推移而变化，而且它们是以规律的方式变化的。众所周知，说话者使他们的语言适应他们的文化，语言反映了文化的方方面面，如礼貌。然而，为了理解为什么世界上7000种语言是这样的，理清语言和社会之间的关系是至关重要的。这项研究以澳大利亚土著人的语言为例。该研究小组之前的工作导致了用于探索语言关系的工具和数据库的开发，并研究了文化和语言系统的变化如何共同发生。研究人员将利用这些研究工具进一步阐明语言是如何变化的，利用现有数据开发新的工具来研究语言史。具体地说，研究人员将研究这些语言中的声音、单词和意义的模式，以揭示它们是如何随着时间的推移而变化的。澳大利亚语言是这类研究的理想语言，因为在欧洲人定居之前的时期，这些群体的人口规模和政治复杂性相似，而且现有材料的语料库也相当大。这项研究将补充这一材料，并使用统计和比较工具检验关于语言关系的假设。这将使研究人员能够在旧材料中识别新语言，并提炼语言如何变化的知识。助学金工作的一个重要组成部分是让学生参与尖端研究，包括语言学和统计方法方面的培训。

Language is fundamental to being human, but very little is known about how language changes over time or how other aspects of human society may change in concert with language. Language is a crucial tool for investigating the past. While archaeology and genetics are also invaluable ways to investigate how cultures have changed, in many areas, language provides better preserved evidence for past contacts, migrations, and cultural change. A great deal of previous work has shown that languages change over time, and that they do so in regular ways. It is also known that speakers adapt their languages to their cultures, and that languages reflect aspects of culture such as politeness. However, in order to understand why the world's 7000 languages look the way they do, untangling the relationships between language and society is crucial.This research uses the languages of Aboriginal Australia as a case study. Previous work by this research group has resulted in the development of tools and databases for exploring language relationships and studying how change in cultural and language systems may happen together. The researchers will utilize these research tools to shed further light on how languages change, using the existing data to develop new tools for investigating language history. Specifically, the investigators will study the patterns of sounds, words, and meanings in these languages to uncover how they have changed over time. Australian languages are ideal for such studies because of the similar population sizes and political complexity of the groups in the period before European settlement, as well as the sizable corpus of existing material. This study will add to this material and test hypotheses about language relationships using statistical and comparative tools. This will allow researchers to identify new languages in old materials as well as refine knowledge of how languages change. A substantial component of the grant work involves including students in cutting-edge research, including training in linguistics and statistical methods.