We propose a method for computing the similarity of natural languages and for clustering them based on their lexical similarity. Our study provides evidence to be used in the investigation of the written intelligibility, i.e., the ability of people writing in different languages to understand one

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We determined mutual intelligibility and linguistic similarity by presenting recordings of the same fable spoken in 15 Chinese dialects to naive listeners of the same set of dialects and asking them to rate the dialects along both subjective dimensions. We then regressed the ratings against

North Sea countries during the time of the 'Scottish Trade ' 1

study of Chinese dialect mutual intelligibility. I hope to conclude that extra-linguistic matters such as population movement, geographical barriers, etc. will help us understand how speech communities were formed in the past. We approach the question of mutual intelligibility by first collecting

We argue that mutual intelligibility testing is an adequate way to determine how different two languages or language varieties are. We tested the mutual intelligibility of 15 Chinese dialects functionally at the level of isolated words (word-intelligibility) and the level of sentences (sentence

define a natural measure of the mutual intelligibility, F (L, L # ), between two agents, one using the language L and the other using L # . We then proceed to investigate three important questions within this framework: (1) Given a language L, what language L # maximizes mutual intelligibility with L? We

Chinese dialectologists agree that there is a primary split in Sinitic dialects into a Mandarin branch and a Southern (non-Mandarin) branch, each comprising a number of (sub)groups. In this paper we will adopt the taxonomy proposed by the authoritative Language Atlas of China. We target 15 dialects, which are related as

ter verkrijging van de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus Dr. D.D. Breimer, hoogleraar in de faculteit der Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappen en die der Geneeskunde, volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties

the mutual intelligibility of