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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Dear corpora colleagues, I am for some ten years on
the Corpora list, but I do not remember that we discussed the possibility to use
phonetic corpora for language classification. I must remark that Corpora
colleagues discuss interesting linguistic topics on the list.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Cross-linguistic categorization in phonetics may
give some new clues for language taxonomy or language
classification.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Some time ago it was a common place in linguistics
that Latin is a Romance language. However, according to the modern
classification Latin is an Italic language. Nevertheless, we know that Latin is
the parent language for all the Romance languages. Let us analyse its place from
the phono-typological point of view. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>The ordered series of the phono-typological
distances to the centre of the Romance languages:</DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>17.30 Moldavian</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>18.42 Latin </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>20.24 - Rumanian </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>20.54 Italian</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>21.73 -Spanish</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>30.27 - Portuguese</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>51.17 - French</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>The least typical Romance language is French. What
ideas have you got to share with me about the most and the least typical Romance
language from the phono-typological point of view? Looking forward to
hearing from you to <A
href="mailto:yutamb@mail.ru">yutamb@mail.ru</A> in what journal do you
advise me to publish the results of my investigation? Yours sincerely Yuri
Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Linguists may ask about Latin. We all know that
Latin is the parent language for all those Romance languages listed above.
Actually, Latin has the following phono-typological distances:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Latin - Moldavian = 5.58</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Latin - Italian = 6.96</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Latin - Rumanian = 8.66</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Latin - Spanish = 15.09</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Latin - Portuguese = 28.42 </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Latin - French = 45.81 </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Why is Moldavian the closest to Latin? Was Latin
sound picture preserved in Moldavian better? Now Latin is not considered to be a
Romance language but Italic. Should we reconsider this new classification and
return Latin back to the cluster of Romance languages? We can say many words
that Latin is the Italic language but the numerical analysis clearly show that
Latin is a Romance language. At least by its speech sound picture.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Looking forward to hearing from you to
</FONT><A href="mailto:yutamb@mail.ru"><FONT size=2
face=Arial>yutamb@mail.ru</FONT></A><FONT size=2 face=Arial> in what
journal do you advise me to publish the results of my investigation? Yours
sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk,
Russia</FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV></FONT></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>