Swadesh list

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The Swadesh list /ˈswɒdɛʃ/ is a classic compilation of basic concepts for the purposes of historical-comparative linguistics. Translations of the Swadesh list into a set of languages allow researchers to quantify the interrelatedness of those languages. The Swadesh list is named after the U.S. linguist Morris Swadesh. It is used in lexicostatistics (the quantitative assessment of the genealogical relatedness of languages) and glottochronology (the dating of language divergence). Because there are several different lists, some authors also refer to "Swadesh lists".

Contents

1 Versions and authors

2 Principle

3 Usage in lexicostatistics and glottochronology

4 Final Swadesh list

5 Shorter lists

5.1 Sign languages

6 See also

7 Notes

8 References

9 External links

Versions and authors[edit]

Swadesh himself created several versions of his list. He started[1] with a list of 225 meanings, which he reduced to 165 words for the Salish language. In 1952 he published a list of 215 meanings,[2] of which he suggested the removal of 16 for being unclear or not universal, with one added to arrive at 200 words. In 1955[3] he wrote, "The only solution appears to be a drastic weeding out of the list, in the realization that quality is at least as important as quantity....Even the new list has defects, but they are relatively mild and few in number." After minor corrections, he published his final 100-word list in 1971[4] and 1972.

Other versions of lexicostatistical test lists were published e.g. by R. B. Lees (1953), John A. Rea (1958:145f), Dell Hymes (1960:6), E. Cross (1964 with 241 concepts), W. J. Samarin (1967:220f), D. Wilson (1969 with 57 meanings), M. L. Bender (1969), R. L. Oswald (1971), W. P. Lehmann (1984:35f), D. Ringe (1992, passim, different versions), S. A. Starostin (1984, passim, different versions), William S. Y. Wang (1994), M. Lohr (2000, 128 meanings in 18 languages). B. Kessler (2002), and many others.

Frequently used, not for any proven quality, but for its electronic availability via the internet, is the version by I. Dyen (1992, 200 meanings of 95 language variants). Since 2010, a team around M. Dunn has tried to update and enhance that list.[5]

Principle[edit]

In origin, the words in the Swadesh lists were chosen for their universal, culturally independent availability in as many languages as possible, regardless of their "stability". Nevertheless, the stability of the resulting list of "universal" vocabulary under language change and the potential use of this fact for purposes of glottochronology have been analyzed by numerous authors, including Marisa Lohr 1999, 2000.[6]

The Swadesh list was put together by Morris Swadesh on the basis of his intuitions. More recent similar lists, such as the Dolgopolsky list (1964) or the Leipzig–Jakarta list (2009), are based on systematic data from many different languages, but they are not yet as widely known and as widely used as the Swadesh list.

Usage in lexicostatistics and glottochronology[edit]

Lexicostatistical test lists are used in lexicostatistics to define subgroupings of languages, and in glottochronology to "provide dates for branching points in the tree".[7] The task of defining (and counting the number) of cognate words in the list is far from trivial, and often is subject to dispute, because cognates do not necessarily look similar, and recognition of cognates presupposes knowledge of the sound laws of the respective languages. For example, English "wheel" and Sanskrit chakra are cognates, although they are not recognizable as such without knowledge of the history of both languages. For more details, see the main articles.

Final Swadesh list[edit]

Swadesh's final list, published in 1971,[4] contains 100 terms. Explanations of the terms can be found in Swadesh 1952[2] or, where noted by a dagger (†), in Swadesh 1955.

I (Pers.Pron.1.Sg.)

You (2.sg! 1952 thou & ye)

we (1955: inclusive)

this

that

who? (“?” not 1971)

what? (“?” not 1971)

not

all (of a number)

many

one

two

big

long (not 'wide')

small

woman

man (adult male human)

person (individual human)

fish (noun)

bird

dog

louse

tree (not log)

seed (noun!)

leaf (botanics)

root (botanics)

bark (of tree)

skin (1952: person’s)

flesh (1952 meat, flesh)

blood

bone

grease (1952: fat, organic substance)

egg

horn (of bull etc., not 1952)†

tail

feather (large, not down)

hair (on head of humans)

head (anatomic)

ear

eye

nose

mouth

tooth (front, rather than molar)

tongue (anatomical)

claw (not in 1952)†1

foot (not leg)

knee (not 1952)†

hand

belly (lower part of body, abdomen)

neck (not nape!)

breasts (female; 1955 still breast)†

heart

liver

drink (verb)

eat (verb)

bite (verb)

see (verb)

hear (verb)

know (facts)

sleep (verb)

die (verb)

kill (verb)

swim (verb)

fly (verb)

walk (verb)

come (verb)

lie (on side, recline)

sit (verb)

stand (verb)

give (verb)

say (verb)†

sun

moon (not 1952)†

star

water (noun)

rain (noun, 1952 verb)

stone

sand

earth (=soil)

cloud (not fog)

smoke (noun, of fire)

fire

ash(es)

burn (verb intr.!)

path (1952 road, trail; not street)

mountain (not hill)

red (colour)

green (colour)

yellow (colour)

white (colour)

black (colour)

night

hot (adjective; 1952 warm, of weather)

cold (of weather)

full†

new

good

round (not 1952)†

dry (substance!)

name

^ "Claw" was only added in 1955, but again replaced by many well-known specialists with (finger)nail, because expressions for "claw" are not available in many old, died-out, or lesser known languages.

Shorter lists[edit]

The Swadesh–Yakhontov list is a 35-word subset of the Swadesh list posited as especially stable by Russian linguist Sergei Yakhontov. It has been used in lexicostatistics by linguists such as Sergei Starostin. With their Swadesh numbers, they are:[8]

1. I

2. you (singular)

7. this

11. who

12. what

22. one

23. two

45. fish

47. dog

48. louse

64. blood

65. bone

67. egg

68. horn

69. tail

73. ear

74. eye

75. nose

77. tooth

78. tongue

83. hand

103. know

109. die

128. give

147. sun

148. moon

150. water

155. salt

156. stone

163. wind

167. fire

179. year

182. full

183. new

207. name

Holman et al. (2008) found that in identifying the relationships between Chinese dialects the Swadesh–Yakhontov list was less accurate than the original Swadesh-100 list. Further they found that a different (40-word) list was just as accurate as the Swadesh-100 list. However, they calculated the relative stability of the words by comparing retentions between languages in established language families. They found no statistically significant difference in the correlations in the families of the Old versus the New World.

The ranked Swadesh-100 list, with Swadesh numbers and relative stability, is as follows (Holman et al., Appendix. Asterisked words appear on the 40-word list):

22 *louse (42.8)

12 *two (39.8)

75 *water (37.4)

39 *ear (37.2)

61 *die (36.3)

1 *I (35.9)

53 *liver (35.7)

40 *eye (35.4)

48 *hand (34.9)

58 *hear (33.8)

23 *tree (33.6)

19 *fish (33.4)

100 *name (32.4)

77 *stone (32.1)

43 *tooth (30.7)

51 *breasts (30.7)

2 *you (30.6)

85 *path (30.2)

31 *bone (30.1)

44 *tongue (30.1)

28 *skin (29.6)

92 *night (29.6)

25 *leaf (29.4)

76 rain (29.3)

62 kill (29.2)

30 *blood (29.0)

34 *horn (28.8)

18 *person (28.7)

47 *knee (28.0)

11 *one (27.4)

41 *nose (27.3)

95 *full (26.9)

66 *come (26.8)

74 *star (26.6)

86 *mountain (26.2)

82 *fire (25.7)

3 *we (25.4)

54 *drink (25.0)

57 *see (24.7)

27 bark (24.5)

96 *new (24.3)

21 *dog (24.2)

72 *sun (24.2)

64 fly (24.1)

32 grease (23.4)

73 moon (23.4)

70 give (23.3)

52 heart (23.2)

36 feather (23.1)

90 white (22.7)

89 yellow (22.5)

20 bird (21.8)

38 head (21.7)

79 earth (21.7)

46 foot (21.6)

91 black (21.6)

42 mouth (21.5)

88 green (21.1)

60 sleep (21.0)

7 what (20.7)

26 root (20.5)

45 claw (20.5)

56 bite (20.5)

83 ash (20.3)

87 red (20.2)

55 eat (20.0)

33 egg (19.8)

6 who (19.0)

99 dry (18.9)

37 hair (18.6)

81 smoke (18.5)

8 not (18.3)

4 this (18.2)

24 seed (18.2)

16 woman (17.9)

98 round (17.9)

14 long (17.4)

69 stand (17.1)

97 good (16.9)

17 man (16.7)

94 cold (16.6)

29 flesh (16.4)

50 neck (16.0)

71 say (16.0)

84 burn (15.5)

35 tail (14.9)

78 sand (14.9)

5 that (14.7)

65 walk (14.4)

68 sit (14.3)

10 many (14.2)

9 all (14.1)

59 know (14.1)

80 cloud (13.9)

63 swim (13.6)

49 belly (13.5)

13 big (13.4)

93 hot (11.6)

67 lie (11.2)

15 small (6.3)

Sign languages[edit]

In studying the sign languages of Vietnam and Thailand, linguist James Woodward noted that the traditional Swadesh list applied to spoken languages was unsuited for sign languages. The Swadesh list results in overestimation of the relationships between sign languages, due to indexical signs such as pronouns and parts of the body. The modified list is as follows, in largely alphabetical order:[9]

all

animal

bad

because

bird

black

blood

child

count

day

die

dirty

dog

dry

dull

dust

earth

egg

grease

father

feather

fire

fish

flower

good

grass

green

heavy

how

hunt

husband

ice

if

kill

laugh

leaf

lie

live

long

louse

man

meat

mother

mountain

name

narrow

new

night

not

old

other

person

play

rain

red

correct

river

rope

salt

sea

sharp

short

sing

sit

smooth

snake

snow

stand

star

stone

sun

tail

thin

tree

vomit

warm

water

wet

what

when

where

white

who

wide

wife

wind

with

woman

wood

worm

year

yellow

full

moon

brother

cat

dance

pig

sister

work

See also[edit]

A General Service List of English Words

Automated Similarity Judgment Program

Basic English

Cognate

Dolgopolsky list

Glottochronology

Historical linguistics

Indo-European studies

Intercontinental Dictionary Series

Leipzig–Jakarta list

Lexicostatistics

Mass lexical comparison

Proto-language

Notes[edit]

^ Swadesh 1950: 161

^ a b Swadesh 1952: 456–7

^ Swadesh 1955: 125

^ a b Swadesh 1971: 283

^ http://ielex.mpi.nl./

^ Marisa Lohr (2000), "New Approaches to Lexicostatistics and Glottochronology" in C. Renfrew, A. McMahon and L. Trask, ed. Time Depth in Historical Linguistics, Vol. 1,pp. 209–223

^ Sheila Embleton (1992), in W. Bright, ed., International Encyclopaedia of Linguistics, Oxford University Press, p. 131

^ Starostin 1991

^ Karen Emmorey; Harlan L. Lane (2000). The Signs of Language Revisited: An Anthology to Honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima. Psychology Press. pp. 20–21. ISBN 978-0-8058-3246-4. Retrieved 26 September 2011.

References[edit]

Campbell, Lyle. (1998). Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-262-53267-0.

Embleton, Sheila (1995). Review of An Indo-European Classification: A Lexicostatistical Experiment by Isidore Dyen, J.B. Kruskal and P.Black. TAPS Monograph 82–5, Philadelphia. in Diachronica Vol. 12, no. 2, 263–68.

Gudschinsky, Sarah. (1956). "The ABCs of Lexicostatistics (Glottochronology)." Word, Vol. 12, 175–210.

Hoijer, Harry. (1956). "Lexicostatistics: A Critique." Language, Vol. 32, 49–60.

Holm, Hans J. (2007). "The New Arboretum of Indo-European 'Trees': Can New Algorithms Reveal the Phylogeny and Even Prehistory of Indo-European?" Journal of Quantitative Linguistics, Vol. 14, 167–214.

Holman, Eric W., Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Viveka Velupillai, André Müller, Dik Bakker (2008). "Explorations in Automated Language Classification". Folia Linguistica, Vol. 42, no. 2, 331–354

Sankoff, David (1970). "On the Rate of Replacement of Word-Meaning Relationships." Language, Vol. 46, 564–569.

Starostin, Sergei (1991). Altajskaja Problema i Proisxozhdenie Japonskogo Jazyka [The Altaic Problem and the Origin of the Japanese Language]. Moscow: Nauka

Swadesh, Morris. (1950). "Salish Internal Relationships." International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 16, 157–167.

Swadesh, Morris. (1952). "Lexicostatistic Dating of Prehistoric Ethnic Contacts." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 96, 452–463.

Swadesh, Morris. (1955). "Towards Greater Accuracy in Lexicostatistic Dating." International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 21, 121–137.

Swadesh, Morris. (1971). The Origin and Diversification of Language. Ed. post mortem by Joel Sherzer. Chicago: Aldine. ISBN 0-202-01001-5. Contains final 100-word list on p. 283.

Swadesh, Morris, et al. (1972). "What is Glottochronology?" in Morris Swadesh and Joel Sherzer, ed., The Origin and Diversification of Language, pp. 271–284. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0-202-30841-3.

Wittmann, Henri (1973). "The Lexicostatistical Classification of the French-Based Creole Languages." Lexicostatistics in Genetic Linguistics: Proceedings of the Yale Conference, April 3–4, 1971, dir. Isidore Dyen, 89–99. La Haye: Mouton.[1]

External links[edit]

| Look up Appendix:Swadesh lists in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Lexico-semantic universals: A critical overview

Rosetta project

Swadesh Lists of Brazilian Native Languages

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