Dr. Simon J. Greenhill
I research why and how people created all the amazing languages around us, and what they tell us about human prehistory.
I use (mainly) Bayesian phylogenetic methods to tackle these questions and have investigated everything from how the Austronesian peoples settled the Pacific, to modelling the co-evolution of linguistic structure. And I have built a number of large-scale databases to help answer these questions.
Currently I'm one of the editors of Language Dynamics and Change and on the editorial board of the Journal of Language Evolution.
I'm a senior scientist in the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language at Australian National University.
Publications:
Greenhill SJ, Heggarty P, & Gray RD. 2020 Bayesian Phylolinguistics. In Janda RD, Joseph BD, & Vance BS (Eds) The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Volume II, pp. 226--253. Wiley-Blackwell: New Jersey
Abstract OverviewChange is coming to historical linguistics. Big, or at least “big‐ish” data (Gray and Watts 2017), are now becoming increasingly available in the form of large web‐ accessible lexical, typological, and phonological databases (e.g., Greenhill et al. 2008, Bowern 2016, Moran et al. 2014, Dryer and Haspelmath 2013, Bickel et al. 2017) and the soon to be released Lexibank, Grambank, Parabank, and …
Roberts, S. G., Killin, A., Deb, A., Sheard, C., Greenhill, S. J., Sinnemäki, K., … Jordan, F. (2020). CHIELD: the causal hypotheses in evolutionary linguistics database. The Journal of Language Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzaa001.
Abstract PDF 10.1093/jole/lzaa001 OverviewLanguage is one of the most complex of human traits. There are many hypotheses about how it originated, what factors shaped its diversity, and what ongoing processes drive how it changes. We present the Causal Hypotheses in Evolutionary Linguistics Database (CHIELD, https://chield.excd.org/), a tool for expressing, exploring, and evaluating hypotheses. It allows researchers to integrate multiple …
Shcherbakova O, Skirgård H, & Greenhill SJ. 2020.Phylogenetic exploration of language complexity in Austronesian, Bantu, and Indo-European Language Families. Pp. 411-413, In Ravignani A, Barbieri C, Flaherty M, Jadoul Y, Lattenkamp E, Little H, Martins M, Mudd K, & Verhoef T (Eds). The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference (Evolang13). Nijmegen: The Evolution of Language Conferences.
Abstract PDFRzymski, Christoph, Tiago Tresoldi, Simon J. Greenhill, Mei-Shin Wu, Nathanael E. Schweikhard, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Volker Gast, et al. 2020. The Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications, Reproducible Analysis of Cross-Linguistic Polysemies. Scientific Data 7 (1): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0341-x.
Abstract PDF 10.1038/s41597-019-0341-x OverviewAdvances in computer-assisted linguistic research have been greatly influential in reshaping linguistic research. With the increasing availability of interconnected datasets created and curated by researchers, more and more interwoven questions can now be investigated. Such advances, however, are bringing high requirements in terms of rigorousness for preparing and curating datasets. Here we …
Jackson JC, Watts J, Henry TR, List JM, Forkel R, Mucha PJ, Greenhill SJ, Gray RD, & Lindquist KA. 2019 Emotion semantics show both cultural variation and universal structure. Science, 366, 1517-1522.
Abstract PDF 10.1126/science.aaw8160 OverviewIt is unclear whether emotion terms have the same meaning across cultures. Jackson et al. examined nearly 2500 languages to determine the degree of similarity in linguistic networks of 24 emotion terms across cultures (see the Perspective by Majid). There were low levels of similarity, and thus high variability, in the meaning of emotion terms across cultures. Similarity of emotion terms could be …
Projects:
Glottobank
Glottobank is an international research consortium established to document and understand the world’s linguistic diversity. We have established five global databases documenting variation in language structure (Grambank), lexicon (Lexibank), paradigm systems (Parabank), numerals (Numeralbank), and phonetic changes (Phonobank).
Database of Places, Language, Culture and Environment
From the foods we eat, to who we can marry, to the types of games we teach our children, the diversity of cultural practices in the world is astounding. Yet, our ability to visualize and understand this diversity is often limited by the ways it traditionally has been documented and shared: on a culture-by-culture basis, in locally-told stories or difficult-to-access books and articles. D-PLACE represents an attempt to bring together this dispersed corpus of information.
Trans-New Guinea Online
TransNewGuinea.org is a database of the Trans-New Guinea language family and friends. The Trans-New Guinea language family currently occupies most of the interior of New Guinea. This family is possibly the third largest in the world with 400 languages and is tentatively thought to have originated with root-crop agriculture around 10,000 years ago. However, vanishingly little is known about this family’s history.
POLLEX: Polynesian Lexicon Project Online
The Polynesian Lexicon Project Online is a large-scale comparative dictionary of Polynesian languages.
Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database
The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database is the world’s largest cross-linguistic database of the Pacific. It contains ~300,000 lexical items from ~1,600 languages spoken throughout the Pacific region.