Re: ASJP - Automated Glottochronology: Dating the World's Language F

I am a little distrustful of a learned article that claims,
"Glottochronological dates are found to be on the average within 484 years
of actual dates." Firstly this implies there is an actual date for the
commencement of a language, or language family. Secondly, it implies a
level of precision which is nonsense. If the authors understood statistics
or mathematics, they could not have written "484".

It reminds me of the computer scientists in New Zealand who made nonsensical
computer-based pronouncements about Indo-European about two years ago. I do
wish Great Thinkers who write about something outside their area would talk
to people who do work in that area.

Apart from those grumbles, I look forward to what these methods will be able
to tell us, as they improve.

Peter