Simon J. Greenhill

Research interests

Publications

• Global predictors of language endangerment and the future of linguistic diversity

  Nature Ecology & Evolution · 2021 · 10.1038/s41559-021-01604-y

• The Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications, reproducible analysis of cross-linguistic polysemies

  Scientific Data · 2020 · https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0341-x

• The ecological drivers of variation in global language diversity

  Nature Communications · 2019 · https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09842-2

• Emotion semantics show both cultural variation and universal structure

  Science · 2019 · https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw8160

• Dated language phylogenies shed light on the ancestry of Sino-Tibetan

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2019 · 10.1073/pnas.1817972116

• Population Size and the Rate of Language Evolution: A Test Across Indo-European, Austronesian, and Bantu Languages

  Frontiers in Psychology · 2018 · https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00576

• A Bayesian phylogenetic study of the Dravidian language family

  Royal Society Open Science · 2018 · https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171504

• Cross-Linguistic Data Formats, advancing data sharing and re-use in comparative linguistics

  Scientific Data · 2018 · https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.205

• The Potential of Automatic Word Comparison for Historical Linguistics

  PLoS ONE · 2017 · https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0170046

• Evolutionary dynamics of language systems

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2017 · https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1700388114

• D-PLACE: A Global Database of Cultural, Linguistic and Environmental Diversity

  PLoS ONE · 2016 · 10.1371/journal.pone.0158391

• Rate of language evolution is affected by population size

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2015 · https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1419704112

• Broad supernatural punishment but not moralizing high gods precede the evolution of political complexity in Austronesia

  Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2015 · 10.1098/rspb.2014.2556

• The evolution of traditional knowledge: environment shapes medicinal plant use in Nepal

  Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2014 · https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2768

• Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language Family

  Science · 2012 · https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1219669

• Evolved structure of language shows lineage-specific trends in word-order universals

  Nature · 2011 · https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09923

• Rise and fall of political complexity in island South-East Asia and the Pacific

  Nature · 2010 · 10.1038/nature09461

• The shape and tempo of language evolution

  Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2010 · https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.0051

• On the shape and fabric of human history

  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2010 · 10.1098/rstb.2010.0162

• Does horizontal transmission invalidate cultural phylogenies?

  Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2009 · https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.1944

• Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement

  Science · 2009 · https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1166858

• Matrilocal residence is ancestral in Austronesian societies

  Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2009 · https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2009.0088

• Languages Evolve in Punctuational Bursts

  Science · 2008 · 10.1126/science.1149683

• The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics

  Evolutionary Bioinformatics · 2008 · 10.4137/ebo.s893

• The Pleasures and Perils of Darwinizing Culture (with Phylogenies)

  Biological Theory · 2007 · 10.1162/biot.2007.2.4.360

Current projects

No projects listed.