{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,15]],"date-time":"2026-04-15T17:53:27Z","timestamp":1776275607672,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":27,"publisher":"MIT Press - Journals","issue":"4","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Computational Linguistics"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2020,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:p> The terms \u201clanguage\u201d and \u201cdialect\u201d are ingrained, but linguists nevertheless tend to agree that it is impossible to apply a non-arbitrary distinction such that two speech varieties can be identified as either distinct languages or two dialects of one and the same language. A database of lexical information for more than 7,500 speech varieties, however, unveils a strong tendency for linguistic distances to be bimodally distributed. For a given language group the linguistic distances pertaining to either cluster can be teased apart, identifying a mixture of normal distributions within the data and then separating them fitting curves and finding the point where they cross. The thresholds identified are remarkably consistent across data sets, qualifying their mean as a universal criterion for distinguishing between language and dialect pairs. The mean of the thresholds identified translates into a temporal distance of around one to one-and-a-half millennia (1,075\u20131,635 years). <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1162\/coli_a_00366","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,10,8]],"date-time":"2019-10-08T14:59:06Z","timestamp":1570546746000},"page":"823-831","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":15,"title":["How to Distinguish Languages and Dialects"],"prefix":"10.1162","volume":"45","author":[{"given":"S\u00f8ren","family":"Wichmann","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Kazan Federal University, and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Language Resources."}]}],"member":"281","reference":[{"key":"bib1","volume-title":"A Course in Romance Linguistics","author":"Agard Frederick","year":"1984"},{"key":"bib2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.18637\/jss.v032.i06"},{"key":"bib3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/0024-3841(71)90074-X"},{"key":"bib4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/464393"},{"key":"bib5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1353\/lan.2013.0009"},{"key":"bib6","volume-title":"Dialect Intelligibility Testing","author":"Casad Eugene H.","year":"1974"},{"key":"bib7","volume-title":"The World Atlas of Language Structures Online","author":"Dryer Matthew S.","year":"2013"},{"key":"bib8","author":"Gooskens Charlotte","year":"2019","journal-title":"Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism"},{"key":"bib9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/14790718.2017.1350185"},{"key":"bib10","first-page":"278","volume":"10","author":"Gooskens Charlotte","year":"2016","journal-title":"Language Documentation and Conservation"},{"key":"bib11","volume-title":"Glottolog 3.0","author":"Hammarstr\u00f6m Harald","year":"2017"},{"key":"bib12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3115\/1641976.1641984"},{"key":"bib13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/662127"},{"key":"bib14","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1500331112"},{"key":"bib15","first-page":"79","volume":"6","author":"Korjakov Yurij Borisovich","year":"2017","journal-title":"Voprosy Jazykoznanija"},{"key":"bib16","volume-title":"Language in Uganda","author":"Ladefoged Peter","year":"1972"},{"key":"bib17","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/BF00973770"},{"key":"bib18","volume-title":"Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twentieth Edition","author":"Simons Gary F.","year":"2017"},{"key":"bib19","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/464084"},{"key":"bib20","volume-title":"Proceedings of ALS2K, the 2000 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society","author":"Szeto Cecilia","year":"2000"},{"issue":"3","key":"bib21","first-page":"322","volume":"95","author":"Voegelin Charles F.","year":"1951","journal-title":"Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society"},{"key":"bib22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/417262"},{"key":"bib23","first-page":"70","volume-title":"The Continuum Companion to Historical Linguistics","author":"Wichmann S\u00f8ren","year":"2010"},{"key":"bib24","volume-title":"Interactive R program for ASJP version 1","author":"Wichmann S\u00f8ren","year":"2019"},{"issue":"4","key":"bib25","first-page":"604","volume":"66","author":"Wichmann S\u00f8ren","year":"2017","journal-title":"Systematic Biology"},{"key":"bib26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.physa.2010.05.011"},{"key":"bib27","unstructured":"Wichmann, S\u00f8ren, Eric W. 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