Swadesh list

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Swadesh lists are collections of universal terms for quantitative comparisons of languages ​​assumed to be genetically related. It is named after the American linguist Morris Swadesh , who made it known in the 1950s in highly acclaimed articles. He himself frequently switched between different names, such as basic list , lexical test list , lexicostatistic test list or diagnostic list , but defined them in 1955 in the sense mentioned above.

Authors and word ranges

In terms of size, five lists can be made out that go directly back to Swadesh:

  • The original list of 215 words (1950) . It was republished in 1955 (with vomit instead of puke ), and the 92 words marked with an asterisk became the basis of the 100-word list (see below).
  • The list of 200 words (1952), slightly shortened compared to the original list and provided with more explanations . Speak became to say , puke became to vomit , 16 words were omitted ( brother , clothing , cook , cry , dance , eight , hundred , nine , seven , shoot , sister , six , spear , ten , twenty , work ), and one ( heavy ) was added to make the round number 200.
  • The 100 Word List (1955) . It is based on 92 words from the original list, and eight words were added ( breast , claw , full , horn , knee , moon , round, and say instead of speak ). It was published again posthumously in 1971 (with ash instead of ashes , breasts instead of breast , flesh instead of meat , grease instead of fat , hot instead of warm , path instead of road and you instead of thou ).

Also:

  • The list for the Salish language with 165 words (1950) , which shares 120 words in common with the original list. Of the remaining 45, three ( breast , horn , moon ) were included in the 100-word list.
  • The list for other American languages ​​with 97 words (1954) . Compared to the 100-word list, it has 14 words less; it contains 11 additional words from the 200-word list.

Swadesh already uses older word lists from Franz Boas . A selection of other versions: Robert B. Lees (1953), John A. Rea (1958), Dell Hymes (1960), William J. Samarin (1967), Ephraim Cross (1964, with 241 terms), Daryll Wilson (1969, 57 terms), Lionel Bender (1969), Robert L. Oswalt (1971), Winfred P. Lehmann (1984), Donald A. Rings (1992, different versions, approx. 300 terms), Sergei A. Starostin (1984, completely different versions), William Shi-Yuan Wang (1994), Marisa Lohr (2000, with 128 of the most stable terms in 18 languages), Brett Kessler (2001). The list by Isidor Dyen (1992, 200 lexemes from 95 language variants) is often used not because of its quality, but because of its availability on the Internet.

Selection principle

A common mistake is the assumption that it is a basic vocabulary in the sense of language learning. A second mistake is the assumption that the words were chosen for their stability. This was never intended, but the vocabulary was chosen exclusively according to availability in as many word lists as possible. In addition, there is an even “stability” due to the laws of distribution in natural languages. not possible at all. From a cladistic point of view, a high level of “stability” (and thus consistency in as many languages ​​as possible) is even counterproductive because it is “uninformative”. Corresponding studies do not recognize these essential connections.

application

Such lists are used in lexicostatistics to determine the relationship and separation behavior of language families, as well as in glottochronology to determine the period since the separation of genealogically related languages . It should be noted that it is anything but easy and can be controversial to determine the number of related words in the list, as they do not automatically look similar, and recognizing related words requires in-depth knowledge of the grammar and sound shifting rules of the respective Languages ​​required. The example of some Albanian test lists showed that even linguists make considerable mistakes. Due to stochastic laws, direct sum comparisons do not allow any reliable conclusions to be drawn about the relationship between languages.

Last valid original Swadeshlist (1971) with German equivalents

No. Semantic group Original term German equivalent stability
1. Personal Pronouns I (Pers.pron. 1.sg.) I 100
2. Personal Pronouns You (2nd sg! 1952 thou & ye) You 92
3. Personal Pronouns we (1955: inclusive) we 92
4th Location this this) 34
5. Location that that 42
6th Interrogatives who? ("?" Left off 1971) who? 83
7th Interrogatives what? ("?" Left off 1971) What? 74
8th. Miscellaneous not Not 83
9. Quantitative all (of a number) all 92
10. Quantitative many lots 58
11. Numerals one (numeral) one 100
12. Numerals two (numeral) two 100
13. Size big big 48
14th Size long long 82
15th Size small small 41
16. Persons woman woman 71
17th Persons man (male human) man 45
18th Persons person (human being) Person (human being) 74
19th Animals fish (noun) fish 66
20th Animals bird bird 40
21st Animals dog dog 50
22nd Animals louse louse 80
23. Plants & Plant Parts tree (not log) tree 83
24. Plants & Plant Parts seed (noun) (!) Seeds (seeds) 66
25th Plants & Plant Parts leaf (of plants) Leaf (of plants) 100
26th Plants & Plant Parts root (of plants) Root (of plants) 82
27. Plants & Plant Parts bark (of tree) Bark (from trees) 100
28. Body Parts and Substances skin (1952: person's) skin 74
29 Body Parts and Substances flesh (1952 meat, flesh) flesh 77
30th Body Parts and Substances blood blood 100
31. Body Parts and Substances bone bone 71
32. Body Parts and Substances grease (1952: fat, orgc. subst.) Fat (substance) 56
33. Body Parts and Substances egg egg 84
34. Body Parts and Substances horn (of bull etc, not 1952) Horn (e.g. of a bull) -
35. Body Parts and Substances tail tail 83
36. Body Parts and Substances feather (large, not down) Feather (large, not down) 74
37. Body Parts and Substances hair (?) hair 48
38. Body Parts and Substances head (anatomic) Head (anatomical) 71
39. Body Parts and Substances ear ear 100
40. Body Parts and Substances eye eye 74
41. Body Parts and Substances nose nose 66
42. Body Parts and Substances mouth mouth 68
43. Body Parts and Substances tooth (front) tooth 100
44. Body Parts and Substances tongue (anat.) Tongue (anatomical) 100
45. Body Parts and Substances claw (not nail, not in 1952) Claw (lion, bird of prey) -
46. Body Parts and Substances foot foot 90
47. Body Parts and Substances knee (not 1952) knee -
48. Body Parts and Substances hand hand 100
49. Body Parts and Substances belly (abdomen, not stomach) Belly (not stomach) 50
50. Body Parts and Substances neck (not nape!) Neck (not neck) 49
51. Body Parts and Substances breasts (female; 1955 breast) Breasts (female) -
52. Body Parts and Substances heart heart 65
53. Body Parts and Substances liver liver 40
54. Body sensations and activities drink (verb) drink 92
55. Body sensations and activities eat (verb) eat 68
56. Body sensations and activities bite (verb) bite 57
57. Body sensations and activities see (verb) see 82
58. Body sensations and activities hear (verb) Listen 85
59. Body sensations and activities know (facts) know (not believe) 59
60. Body sensations and activities sleep (verb) sleep 82
61. Body sensations and activities the (verb) to die 92
62. Miscellaneous kill (verb) kill 25th
63. Position and Movement swim (verb) swim 59
64. Position and Movement fly (verb) to fly 82
65. Position and Movement walk (verb) go (on foot) 59
66. Position and Movement come (verb) come 100
67. Position and Movement lie / lie down (verb) lie / lie down 33
68. Position and Movement sit (verb) sit 100
69. Position and Movement stand (verb) stand 77
70. Position and Movement give (verb) give 85
71. Oral Activities say (verb) say 56
72. Natural Objects and Phenomena sun Sun 100
73. Natural Objects and Phenomena moon (not 1952) moon -
74. Natural Objects and Phenomena star star 100
75. Natural Objects and Phenomena water (noun) Water (general) 83
76. Natural Objects and Phenomena rain (noun, 1952 verb) Rain (1952 still verb) 83
77. Natural Objects and Phenomena stone stone 68
78. Natural Objects and Phenomena sand sand 68
79. Natural Objects and Phenomena earth (= soil) Earth (soil) 66
80. Natural Objects and Phenomena cloud cloud 83
81. Natural Objects and Phenomena smoke (noun, of fire) Smoke (from fire) 81
82. Natural Objects and Phenomena fire Fire 33
83. Natural Objects and Phenomena ash (it) ash 66
84. Miscellaneous burn (verb intr.!) burn 67
85. Miscellaneous path (1952 road, trail) Path (still ambiguous in 1952) 33
86. Natural Objects and Phenomena mountain mountain 67
87. Colors red red 66
88 Colors green green 83
89. Colors yellow yellow 51
90. Colors white White 51
91. Colors black black 83
92. Time Periods night night 82
93. Descriptives hot (1952 warm) hot (1952 warm, from the weather) 79
94. Descriptives cold (of weather) cold (from the weather) 65
95. Descriptives full full -
96. Descriptives new New 82
97. Descriptives good good (acceptable) 83
98 Descriptives round (not 1952) round -
99 Descriptives dry (substance!) dry (of a substance) 89
100. Miscellaneous Surname Surname 100
Clarification of ambiguities according to Swadesh's 1952 and 1955 (Hans J. Holm)

Relevant literature by M. Swadesh

Web links

  • Bernhard Ganter : Language Comparison - Qualitative Methods. Technical University of Dresden, lecture in SS 2004 at the TU Dresden [1]

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Swadesh 1952 p. 456
  2. ↑ Swadesh 1955 p. 126
  3. ↑ a b Swadesh 1950 p. 161 (the number of 225 words mentioned in the text is a misprint); Concepticon: Swadesh 1950
  4. ↑ a b c Swadesh 1955 pp. 132-137; Concepticon: Swadesh 1955
  5. ↑ Swadesh 1952 pp. 456-457; Concepticon: Swadesh 1952
  6. ↑ Swadesh 1955 p. 124
  7. ↑ a b Swadesh 1971 p. 283 ; Concepticon: Swadesh 1971
  8. ↑ Swadesh 1954 pp. 316-318
  9. ^ Robert B. Lees: The basis of glottochronology . In: Language . tape 29 , no. 2 , 1953, p. 113-127 , JSTOR : 410164 .
  10. ^ John A. Rea: Concerning the validity of lexicostatistics . In: International journal of American linguistics . tape 24 , 2 (Franz Boas centennial volume), 1958, pp. 145-150 , JSTOR : 1263644 .
  11. ^ Concepticon: Hymes 1960
  12. ^ Concepticon: Samarin 1967
  13. ^ Concepticon: Cross 1964
  14. ^ Concepticon: Wilson 1969
  15. ^ Robert L. Oswalt: Towards the construction of a standard lexicostatistic list . In: Anthropological linguistics . tape 13 , no. 9 , 1971, p. 421-434 , JSTOR : 30029088 .
  16. ^ Winfred P. Lehmann: Workbook for historical linguistics . Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington, 1984, p. 35 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  17. ↑ Concepticon: Rings 1992
  18. ↑ Гипотеза о генетических связях синотибетских языков с енисейскими и северокавказскими языками . In: Лингвистическая реконструкция и древнейшая история Востока . 4, Древнейшая языковая ситуация в Восточной Азии. Hаука, Москва 1984, p. 19-38 . English translation: On the hypothesis of a genetic connection between the Sino-Tibetan languages ​​and the Yeniseian and North-Caucasian languages . In: Dene-Sino-Caucasian languages . Brockmeyer, Bochum 1991, p. 12–41 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  19. ^ William Shi-Yuan Wang: Glottochronology, lexicostatistics, and other numerical methods . In: The encyclopedia of language and linguistics . tape 3 , 1994, p. 1445-1450 ( edu.hk [PDF]). ( Concepticon: Wang 2004 )
  20. ^ A b Marisa Lohr: New approaches to lexicostatistics and glottochronology . In: Colin Renfrew (Ed.): Time depth in historical linguistics . tape 1 . McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2000, p. 209-222 ( tib.eu ).
  21. ^ Concepticon: Kessler 2001
  22. ↑ Concepticon: Dyen 1992
  23. ↑ M. Swadesh 1952: 457
  24. ↑ cf. z. B. Swadesh 1950: 157
  25. ↑ cf. z. B. Zipf 1949
  26. ↑ Holman, Eric W., Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Viveka Velupillai, André Müller, and Dik Bakker. 2008. Explorations in automated lexicostatistics. Folia Linguistica 42.2: 331-354
  27. ↑ Hans J. Holm: Albanian basic word lists and the position of Albanian in the Indo-European languages . In: Journal of Balkanology . tape 45 , no. 2 , 2009, p. 171–205 , JSTOR : 10.13173 / zeitbalk.45.2.0171 . (Improved English version in The Journal of Indo-European Studies , Vol. 39-1,2 / 2011)
  28. ^ Hans J. Holm (2003): The proportionality trap, Or: What is wrong with lexicostatistical subgrouping? In: Indo-European Research 108: 39-47
  29. ↑ Dieter Wunderlich : Languages ​​of the World . Lambert Schneider (WBG), Darmstadt 2015, ISBN 978-3-650-40026-0 , p. 97 .