The method starts by making use of well-established linguisticdata on words and grammar within these language families, and building "family trees" of those languages.
The search for linguistic universals yielded interesting data on languages, but after decades of work, not a single proposed universal has withstood scrutiny.
Prof Matras said, while the data had provided "important confirmation of Manchester's enormous linguistic diversity" the research revealed a greater number of languages and people who spoke them.