Editing Historical linguistics (section)

== Development ==
{{Further|Comparative method#Origin and development}}
Modern historical linguistics dates to the late 18th century, having originally grown out of the earlier discipline of [[philology]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Campbell |first=Lyle |title=Historical Linguistics: An Introduction |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-7486-4601-2 |location=Edinburgh |pages=391}}</ref> the study of ancient texts and documents dating back to antiquity. Initially, historical linguistics served as the cornerstone of [[comparative linguistics]], primarily as a tool for [[linguistic reconstruction]].<ref name="Routledge introduction">"Editors' Introduction: Foundations of the new historical linguistics." In: [https://books.google.com/books?id=e-8ABAAAQBAJ ''The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics'']. Routledge, 2015, p.&nbsp;25.</ref> Scholars were concerned chiefly with establishing language families and reconstructing unrecorded [[proto-languages]], using the [[comparative method]] and [[internal reconstruction]].<ref name="Routledge introduction" /> The focus was initially on the well-known [[Indo-European languages]], many of which had long written histories; scholars also studied the [[Uralic languages]], another Eurasian language-family for which less early written material exists. Since then, there has been significant comparative linguistic work expanding outside of European languages as well, such as on the [[Austronesian languages]] and on various families of [[Native American languages]], among many others. Comparative linguistics became only a part of a more broadly-conceived discipline of historical linguistics. For the Indo-European languages, comparative study is now a highly specialized field.

Some scholars have undertaken studies attempting to establish super-families, linking, for example, Indo-European, Uralic, and other families into [[Nostratic]]. These attempts have not met with wide acceptance. The information necessary to establish relatedness becomes less available as the time increases. The time-depth of linguistic methods is limited due to chance word resemblances and variations between language groups, but a limit of around 10,000 years is often assumed.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Baldi |first=Philip |author-link=Philip Baldi |year=2012 |title=Historical Linguistics and Cognitive Science |url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/ped10/Giuli_Dussias/Publications/External/Baldi_Dussias_Rhesis_2012_GD_09_13_2012.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Rheis, International Journal of Linguistics, Philology and Literature |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=5–27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191217040906/http://www.personal.psu.edu/ped10/Giuli_Dussias/Publications/External/Baldi_Dussias_Rhesis_2012_GD_09_13_2012.pdf |archive-date=2019-12-17 |access-date=2017-05-02}} p.&nbsp;11.</ref> Several methods are used to date proto-languages, but the process is generally difficult and its results are inherently approximate.