Robert Forkel
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
phone: +49 (0) 341 3550 261
e-mail:
robert_forkel@[>>> Please remove the text! <<<]eva.mpg.de
About me
I am a scientific programmer, focusing on software to aggregate, curate and publish large databases for linguistic and cultural research. I am also interested in how data is used in research, in particular regarding aspects like reproducibility, and contribute to software packages such as LingPy.
Curriculum Vitae
since 2018 | Head of the research data management group at DLCE |
2014-2017 | Scientific Programmer in the CLLD project |
2007-2012 | Scientific Programmer at the Max Planck Digital Library |
1994-2000 | MA in Mathematics. University Regensburg. Thesis title: "Effektive Berechnung von Residuenabbildungen" |
Publications
In press
Hermann, A., Gutiérrez, P., Chauvel, C., Maury, R., Liorzou, C., Willie, E., Philipp, I., Forkel, R., Rzymski, C., & Bedford, S. (in press). Artefact geochemistry demonstrates long-distance voyaging in the Polynesian Outliers. Science Advances. |
2024
Blum, F., Paschen, L., Forkel, R., Fuchs, S., & Seifart, F. (2024). Consonant lengthening marks the beginning of words across a diverse sample of languages (advance online). Nature Human Behaviour. |
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Forkel, R., & Hammarström, H. (2024). A revised digital edition of Wurm & Hattori’s Language Atlas of the Pacific Area. Scientific Data, 11: 949. |
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Tjuka, A., Forkel, R., & List, J.-M. (2024). Universal and cultural factors shape body part vocabularies. Scientific Reports, 14: 10486. |
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Forkel, R., List, J.-M., Rzymski, C., & Segerer, G. (2024). Linguistic survey of India and Polyglotta Africana: Two retrostandardized digital editions of large historical collections of multilingual wordlists. In N. Calzolari, M.-Y. Kan, V. Hoste, A. Lenci, & S. Sakti ( |
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Forkel, R., Swanson, D., & Moran, S. (2024). Converting legacy data to CLDF: A FAIR exit strategy for linguistic web apps. In N. Calzolari, M.-Y. Kan, V. Hoste, A. Lenci, & S. Sakti ( |
2023
List, J.-M., Hill, N., Forkel, R., & Blum, F. (2023). Representing and computing uncertainty in phonological reconstruction. In N. Tahmasebi, S. Montariol, H. Dubossarsky, A. Kutuzov, S. Hengchen, D. Alfter, F. Periti, & P. Cassotti ( |
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Tjuka, A., Forkel, R., & List, J.-M. (2023). Curating and extending data for language comparison in Concepticon and NoRaRe. Open Research Europe, 2: 141. |
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Skirgård, H., Haynie, H. J., Blasi, D. E., Hammarström, H., Collins, J., Latarche, J. J., Lesage, J., Weber, T., Witzlack-Makarevich, A., Passmore, S., Chira, A.-M., Maurits, L., Dinnage, R., Dunn, M., Reesink, G., Singer, R., Bowern, C., Epps, P., Hill, J., Vesakoski, O., Robbeets, M., Abbas, N. K., Auer, D., Bakker, N. A., Barbos, G., Borges, R. D., Danielsen, S., Dorenbusch, L., Dorn, E., Elliott, J., Falcone, G., Fischer, J., Ghanggo Ate, Y., Gibson, H., Göbel, H.-P., Goodall, J. A., Gruner, V., Harvey, A., Hayes, R., Heer, L., Herrera Miranda, R. E., Hübler, N., Huntington-Rainey, B., Ivani, J. K., Johns, M., Just, E., Kashima, E., Kipf, C., Klingenberg, J. V., König, N., Koti, A., Kowalik, R. G., Krasnoukhova, O., Lindvall, N. L., Lorenzen, M., Lutzenberger, H., Martins, T. R., Mata German, C., van der Meer, S., Montoya Samamé, J., Müller, M., Muradoglu, S., Neely, K., Nickel, J., Norvik, M., Oluoch, C. A., Peacock, J., Pearey, I. O., Peck, N., Petit, S., Pieper, S., Poblete, M., Prestipino, D., Raabe, L., Raja, A., Reimringer, J., Rey, S. C., Rizaew, J., Ruppert, E., Salmon, K., Sammet, J., Schembri, R., Schlabbach, L., Schmidt, F. W., Skilton, A., Smith, W. D., de Sousa, H., Sverredal, K., Valle, D., Vera, J., Voß, J., Witte, T., Wu, H., Yam, S., Ye, J., Yong, M., Yuditha, T., Zariquiey, R., Forkel, R., Evans, N., Levinson, S. C., Haspelmath, M., Greenhill, S. J., Atkinson, Q. D., & Gray, R. D. (2023). Grambank reveals the importance of genealogical constraints on linguistic diversity and highlights the impact of language loss. Science Advances, 9: eadg6175. |
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Hermann, A., Gutiérrez, P., Chauvel, C., Maury, R., Liorzou, C., Willie, E., Phillip, I., Forkel, R., Rzymski, C., & Bedford, S. (2023). Artifact geochemistry demonstrates long-distance voyaging in the Polynesian Outliers. Science Advances, 9(16): eadf4487. |
2022
Barbieri, C., Blasi, D. E., Arango-Isaza, E., Sotiropoulos, A. G., Hammerström, H., Wichmann, S., Greenhill, S. J., Gray, R. D., Forkel, R., Bickel, B., & Shimizu, K. K. (2022). A global analysis of matches and mismatches between human genetic and linguistic histories. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(47): e2122084119. |
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List, J.-M., Forkel, R., Greenhill, S. J., Rzymski, C., Englisch, J., & Gray, R. D. (2022). Lexibank, a public repository of standardized wordlists with computed phonological and lexical features. Scientific Data, 9: 316. |
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Tjuka, A., Forkel, R., & List, J.-M. (2022). Linking norms, ratings, and relations of words and concepts across multiple language varieties. Behavior Research Methods, 54, 864-884. |
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Forkel, R., & Hammarström, H. (2022). Glottocodes: identifiers linking families, languages and dialects to comprehensive reference information. Semantic Web, 917-924. |
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List, J.-M., Forkel, R., & Hill, N. (2022). A new framework for fast automated phonological reconstruction using trimmed alignments and sound correspondence patterns. In N. Tahmasebi, S. Montariol, A. Kutozov, S. Hengchen, H. Dubossarsky, & L. Borin ( |
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List, J.-M., Vylomova, E., Forkel, R., Hill, N. W., & Cotterell, R. D. (2022). The SIGTYP 2022 shared task on the prediction of cognate reflexes. In E. Vylomova, E. Ponti, & R. Cotterell ( |
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Tresoldi, T., Rzymski, C., Forkel, R., Greenhill, S. J., List, J.-M., & Gray, R. D. (2022). Managing historical linguistic data for computational phylogenetics and computer-assisted language comparison. In A. L. Berez-Kroeker, B. McDonnel, & E. Koller ( |
2021
Forkel, R., & Hammarström, H. (2021). Glottocodes: identifiers linking families, languages and dialects. Semantics Web Journal, 2685-3899. Retrieved from http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/content/glottocodes-identifiers-linking-families-languages-and-dialects. |
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Geisler, H., Forkel, R., & List, J.-M. (2021). A digital, retro-standardized edition of the Tableaux Phonétiques des Patois Suisses Romands (TPPSR). In A. Thibault, M. Avanzi, & N. Lo Vecchio ( |
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List, J.-M., & Forkel, R. (2021). Automated identification of borrowings in multilingual wordlists. Open Research Europe, 1: 79. |
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List, J.-M., Sims, N. A., & Forkel, R. (2021). Toward a sustainable handling of interlinear-glossed text in language documentation. ACM Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing, 20(2), 1-15. |
2020
Hermann, A., Forkel, R., McAlister, A., Cruickshank, A., Golitko, M., Kneebone, B., McCoy, M., Reepmeyer, C., Sheppard, P., Sinton, J., & Weisler, M. (2020). Pofatu, a curated and open-access database for geochemical sourcing of archaeological materials. Scientific Data, 7(1): 141. |
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Rzymski, C., Tresoldi, T., Greenhill, S. J., Wu, M.-S., Schweikhard, N. E., Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M., Gast, V., Bodt, T. A., Hantgan, A., Kaiping, G. A., Chang, S., Lai, Y., Morozova, N., Arjava, H., Hübler, N., Koile, E., Pepper, S., Proos, M., Epps, B. V., Blanco, I., Hundt, C., Monakhov, S., Pianykh, K., Ramesh, S., Gray, R. D., Forkel, R., & List, J.-M. (2020). The database of cross-linguistic colexifications, reproducible analysis of cross-linguistic polysemies. Scientific Data, 7: 13. |
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Forkel, R., & List, J.-M. (2020). CLDFBench: Give your cross-linguistic data a lift. In N. Calzolari, F. Béchet, P. Blache, K. Choukri, C. Cieri, T. Declerck, S. Goggi, H. Ishara, B. Maegaard, H. M. Mariani, A. Moreno, J. Odijk, & S. Piperidis ( |
2019
Jackson, J. C., Watts, J., Henry, T. R., List, J.-M., Forkel, R., Mucha, P. J., Greenhill, S. J., Gray, R. D., & Lindquist, K. A. (2019). Emotion semantics show both cultural variation and universal structure. Science, 366, 1517-1522. |
2018
Forkel, R., List, J.-M., Greenhill, S. J., Rzymski, C., Bank, S., Cysouw, M., Hammarström, H., Haspelmath, M., Kaiping, G. A., & Gray, R. D. (2018). Cross-Linguistic Data Formats, advancing data sharing and re-use in comparative linguistics. Scientific Data, 5: 180205. |
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Hammarström, H., Castermans, T., Forkel, R., Verbeek, K., Westenberg, M. A., & Speckmann, B. (2018). Simultaneous visualization of language endangerment and language description. Language Documentation & Conservation, 12, 359-392. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24792. |
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List, M., Walworth, M., Greenhill, S. J., Tresoldi, T., & Forkel, R. (2018). Sequence comparison in computational historical linguistics. Journal of Language Evolution, 3(2), 130-144. |
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Anderson, C., Tresoldi, T., Chacon, T., Fehn, A.-M., Walworth, M., Forkel, R., & List, J.-M. (2018). A cross-linguistic database of phonetic transcription systems. Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting, 4(1), 21-53. |
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List, J.-M., Greenhill, S. J., Anderson, C., Mayer, T., Tresoldi, T., & Forkel, R. (2018). CLICS2: An improved database of cross-linguistic colexifications assembling lexical data with the help of cross-linguistic data formats. Linguistic Typology, 22(2), 277-306. |
2017
Maurits, L., Forkel, R., Kaiping, G. A., & Atkinson, Q. D. (2017). BEASTling: A software tool for linguistic phylogenetics using BEAST 2. PLoS One, 12(8): e0180908. |
2016
List, J.-M., Cysouw, M., & Forkel, R. (2016). Concepticon: A resource for the linking of concept lists. In Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, May 23-28, 2016, Portorož, Slovenia (pp. 2393-2400). |
2015
Naumann, C., Moran, S., & Forkel, R. ( |
2014
Forkel, R. (2014). The Cross-Linguistic Linked Data project. In 3rd Workshop on Linked Data in Linguistics: Multilingual knowledge resources and natural language processing (pp. 60-66). |
2013
Nordhoff, S., Hammarström, H., Forkel, R., & Haspelmath, M. ( |