Establishing Spatiotemporal Linguistics: Toward an Interdisciplinary Approach to the History of Language and of Human Movement

This book was compiled as a starting point for establishing a new research field called spatio-temporal linguistics. It presents two approaches to language: traditional geohistorical linguistics (Chapter 1) and modern computational methods, such as geographic information systems (GIS) and statistics (Chapter 2). Combining these methods will provide better access to knowledge about the developmental paths of languages in the future. Genetic, contact-induced, and sporadic changes will be more accessible and presented in a more dynamic way. The book illustrates a path from data collection to realizing this new field by collecting and analyzing field data on the languages of Fiji.