http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130212112025.htm
Science News
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Scientists Create Automated 'Time Machine' to Reconstruct Ancient Languages
Feb. 11, 2013 — Ancient languages hold a treasure trove of information about the culture, politics and commerce of millennia past. Yet, reconstructing them to reveal clues into human history can require decades of painstaking work. Now, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have created an automated "time machine," of sorts, that will greatly accelerate and improve the process of reconstructing hundreds of ancestral languages.