[Corpora-List] Phonetic corpora as a tool for language classification.

[Yuri Tambovtsev]

Dear corpora colleagues, I am for some ten years on the Corpora list, but I do not remember that we discussed the possibility to use phonetic corpora for language classification. I must remark that Corpora colleagues discuss interesting linguistic topics on the list.
Cross-linguistic categorization in phonetics may give some new clues for language taxonomy or language classification.
Some time ago it was a common place in linguistics that Latin is a Romance language. However, according to the modern classification Latin is an Italic language. Nevertheless, we know that Latin is the parent language for all the Romance languages. Let us analyse its place from the phono-typological point of view. 
The ordered series of the phono-typological distances to the centre of the Romance languages:
17.30 Moldavian
18.42 Latin 
20.24 - Rumanian 
20.54 Italian
21.73 -Spanish
30.27 - Portuguese
51.17 - French
The least typical Romance language is French. What ideas have you got to share with me about the most and the least typical Romance language from the phono-typological point of view? Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru  in what journal do you advise me to publish the results of my investigation? Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia
Linguists may ask about Latin. We all know that Latin is the parent language for all those Romance languages listed above. Actually, Latin has the following phono-typological distances:
Latin - Moldavian = 5.58
Latin - Italian = 6.96
Latin - Rumanian = 8.66
Latin - Spanish = 15.09
Latin - Portuguese = 28.42 
Latin - French = 45.81 
Why is Moldavian the closest to Latin? Was Latin sound picture preserved in Moldavian better? Now Latin is not considered to be a Romance language but Italic. Should we reconsider this new classification and return Latin back to the cluster of Romance languages? We can say many words that Latin is the Italic language but the numerical analysis clearly show that Latin is a Romance language. At least by its speech sound picture.
Looking forward to hearing from you to yutamb at mail.ru  in what journal do you advise me to publish the results of my investigation? Yours sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia
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