American software reconstructs extinct languages

American scientists have developed new software to rescue extinct languages, from which they originated. Currently, the reconstruction is done slowly by linguists. 

"It would take hundreds of years to dig deep into all these languages, to cross-reference all the changes that have taken place. So that's where the computer shows its brilliance," said Dan Klein, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and one of the coordinators. of the study.
 

To develop the program, the researchers used 637 languages currently spoken in Asia and the Pacific and thus recreated the language from which they were born. Based on 142,000 words, the program was able to recreate a primitive language, which they estimate was spoken about 7,000 years ago.

Although the digital method makes it possible to analyze a large amount of data more quickly, scientists recognize that, however, it still does not offer the same degree of precision as a linguist.
 

Source: BBCBrasil.com