[Corpora-List] Density of Language Taxa

[Yuri Tambovtsev]

Dear Corpora colleagues, please comment on the following: 
Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk Pedagog. University, Russia. 
yutamb at mail.ru 
Dispersion of the Uralic language taxon from a typological viewpoint.
   The goal of this research was to compute the similarity of the 
distribution of 8 consonantal groups (labial, front, palatal, back, 
sonorant, occlusive, fricative and voiced) in the speech sound chains 
of different world languages. The value of the coefficient of variance 
was chosen as the measure of similarity. Let us analyse the values in 
some language taxa: groups, families and super-families. 
The Value of the Mean of the Coefficient of Variance (V%). 
Ugric group (5 languages) - V%= 27.66%  
Volgaic group (4) - V% = 17.90%
Baltic-Finnic group (7) = 23.24%
Finno-Ugric family (20) = 23.91%
Samoyedic family (4) = 16.30%
Uralic super-family (24) = 28.31%. 
The value of the mean of the coefficient of variance of the Ugric 
group (27.66%) is really great. We can compare it to the analogical 
means of the groups of the Indo-European family: Baltic (2 languages) 
- 9.08%; Iranian (8 languages) - 11.69%; Slavonic (12 languages) -
15.78%; Indic -20.40%; Germanic (6 languages) - 24.51%.
It is possibele to explain the great value of dispersion of
the Ugric group by the fact that the structure of the Hungarian 
speech sound chain is too different from those of Mansi and Hanty.
The fact that the value of the mean of the coefficient of variance in the 
Samoyedic language taxon may tell us that the languages of the 
Samoyedic origin are more typologically similar, than those of Indic 
or Germanic origin. If we unite the Finno-Ugric languages (23.91%) 
and the Samoyedic languages (16.30%) into one language taxon, 
called Uralic, then the dispersion increases to 28.31%, which is much 
greater than those of the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic families taken 
separately. It means that typologically these two parts are quite 
different. This is why, one should be cautious to unite them. They 
seem quite different from the point of view of the distribution of the 
consonants in their speech chains. Usually, genetically related 
languages have similar speech sound chains, that is, they are 
typologically close. Basing on the typological data, it is possible to 
suppose that Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages have gone into 
different directions and this distance is rather great. 
I'd like to hear comments of colleagues concerning the distances 
between the languages inside the language groups, families and super-
families based on the typological data. I wish I could co-operate with 
the linguists who may be interested in my method. It is possible to 
study the density and dispersion of the language taxa of American 
Indian language taxa or the taxa of the Aboriginal languages of 
Australia, etc., etc. Looking forward to hearing from you soon to  
yutamb at mail.ru  Remain yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk 
Pedagog. University, Novosibirsk, Russia. 

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