Swadesh list

Swadesh lists are compilations of universal concepts for quantitative comparisons of languages supposed to be genealogically related, named after the U.S. linguist Morris Swadesh. They are used in lexicostatistics (quantitative language relatedness assessment) and glottochronology (language divergence dating).

Versions and authors

There are several versions of Swadesh alone. Swadesh started (1950:p161) with a list of 225 meanings, reduced there to 165 words for the Salish language; in 1952: p456f he published a list of 215 meanings, of which he suggested to cancel 16 not universal or clear enough, with one added to arrive at 200 words. In 1955: p127 he again listed a "lexi(costatisti)cal test list" with 215 meanings, of which the 92 most favourable ones were marked with an asterisk. Eight better suitable ones were added to reach the full 100 universe, again improved and finally published in 1971:p283 and 1972. This final 100-word list of 1971:p283 (=1972) was the result of his lifetime experience, repeatedly tested for universal usability and unambiguity. Thus, this one alone deserves the label "Swadesh list" and is now listed below.

Other versions of lexicostatistical test lists were published e.g. by R.B. Lees (1953), John A. Rea (1958), D. Wilson (1969 with 57 meanings), M.L. Bender (1969), R.L. Oswald (1971), W.P. Lehmann (1984), 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 electronical availability via the internet is the version of I.Dyen (1992, 200 meanings of 95 language variants).

Principle

One of frequent errors about Swadesh's principle has been that it had been chosen as a "basic" list in the sense of language acquisition, e.g. comparable to the "Basic English Vocabulary". A second frequent error is the assumption that Swadesh chose the meanings for their stability. In fact the lists were chosen for their universal, cultural independent, availability in as many languages as possible. Nevertheless, stability has been analyzed by different authors, e.g. M. Lohr 1999,2000.

Usage in lexicostatistics and glottochronology

Such lexicostatistical test lists are used in lexicostatistics to define the subgrouping of languages, and in glottochronology to "provide dates for branching-points in the tree". Note that the task of defining (and counting the number) of cognate words in the list is far from trivial, and too 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.

Original final Swadesh list (1971:283, postmortem)

Essential explanations are only given in Swadesh 1952:456-7 and 1955* (Hans J. Holm 2011-04-20).

No. Meaning / Concept

1. I (Pers.Pron.1.Sg.)
2. You (2.sg! 1952 thou & ye)
3. we (1955: inclusive)
4. this
5. that
6. who? (“?” not 1971)
7. what? (“?” not 1971)
8. not
9. all (of a number)
10. many
11. one
12. two
13. big
14. long (not 'wide')
15. small
16. woman
17. man (adult male human)
18. person (individual human)
19. fish (noun)
20. bird
21. dog
22. louse
23. tree (not log)
24. seed (noun!)
25. leaf (botanics)
26. root (botanics)
27. bark (of tree)
28. skin (1952: person’s)
29. flesh (1952 meat, flesh)
30. blood
31. bone
32. grease (1952: fat, organic substance)
33. egg
34. horn (of bull etc, not 1952)*7
35. tail
36. feather (large, not down)
37. hair (on head of humans)
38. head (anatomic)
39. ear
40. eye
41. nose
42. mouth
43. tooth (front, rather than molar)
44. tongue (anatomical)
45. claw (not in 1952)*6
46. foot (not leg)
47. knee (not 1952)*5
48. hand
49. belly (lower part of body, abdomen)
50. neck (not nape!)
51. breasts (female; 1955 still breast)*8
52. heart
53. liver
54. drink (verb)
55. eat (verb)
56. bite (verb)
57. see (verb)
58. hear (verb)
59. know (facts)
60. sleep (verb)
61. die (verb)
62. kill (verb)
63. swim (verb)
64. fly (verb)
65. walk (verb)
66. come (verb)
67. lie (on side, recline)
68. sit (verb)
69. stand (verb)
70. give (verb)
71. say (verb)*1
72. sun
73. moon (not 1952)*2
74. star
75. water (noun)
76. rain (noun, 1952 verb)
77. stone
78. sand (opposite to following)
79. earth (=soil)
80. cloud (not fog)
81. smoke (noun, of fire)
82. fire
83. ash(es)
84. burn (verb intr.!)
85. path (1952 road, trail; not street)
86. mountain (not hill)
87. red (colour)
88. green (colour)
89. yellow (colour)
90. white (colour)
91. black (colour)
92. night
93. hot (adverb; 1952 warm, of weather)
94. cold (of weather)
95. full *4
96. new
97. good
98. round (not 1952)*3
99. dry (substance!)
100. name

Note *6 "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

The Swadesh–Yakhontov list is a 35-word subset of the Swadesh list posited as especially stable by Russian linguist Sergei Yakhontov (Starostin 1991). It has been used in lexicostatistics by linguists such as Sergei Starostin. With their Swadesh numbers, they are:

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 the Swadesh-Yakhontov list was less accurate than the Swadesh-100 list in identifying the relationships between Chinese dialects. However, they calculated the relative stability of the words by comparing retentions between languages in established language families, and found that a different 40-word list was just as accurate as the Swadesh-100 list. 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):

1. 22 *louse (42.8)
2. 12 *two (39.8)
3. 75 *water (37.4)
4. 39 *ear (37.2)
5. 61 *die (36.3)
6. 1 *I (35.9)
7. 53 *liver (35.7)
8. 40 *eye (35.4)
9. 48 *hand (34.9)
10. 58 *hear (33.8)
11. 23 *tree (33.6)
12. 19 *fish (33.4)
13. 100 *name (32.4)
14. 77 *stone (32.1)
15. 43 *tooth (30.7)
16. 51 *breasts (30.7)
17. 2 *you (30.6)
18. 85 *path (30.2)
19. 31 *bone (30.1)
20. 44 *tongue (30.1)
21. 28 *skin (29.6)
22. 92 *night (29.6)
23. 25 *leaf (29.4)
24. 76 rain (29.3)
25. 62 kill (29.2)
26. 30 *blood (29.0)
27. 34 *horn (28.8)
28. 18 *person (28.7)
29. 47 *knee (28.0)
30. 11 *one (27.4)
31. 41 *nose (27.3)
32. 95 *full (26.9)
33. 66 *come (26.8)
34. 74 *star (26.6)
35. 86 *mountain (26.2)
36. 82 *fire (25.7)
37. 3 *we (25.4)
38. 54 *drink (25.0)
39. 57 *see (24.7)
40. 27 bark (24.5)
41. 96 *new (24.3)
42. 21 *dog (24.2)
43. 72 *sun (24.2)
44. 64 fly (24.1)
45. 32 grease (23.4)
46. 73 moon (23.4)
47. 70 give (23.3)
48. 52 heart (23.2)
49. 36 feather (23.1)
50. 90 white (22.7)
51. 89 yellow (22.5)
52. 20 bird (21.8)
53. 38 head (21.7)
54. 79 earth (21.7)
55. 46 foot (21.6)
56. 91 black (21.6)
57. 42 mouth (21.5)
58. 88 green (21.1)
59. 60 sleep (21.0)
60. 7 what (20.7)
61. 26 root (20.5)
62. 45 claw (20.5)
63. 56 bite (20.5)
64. 83 ash (20.3)
65. 87 red (20.2)
66. 55 eat (20.0)
67. 33 egg (19.8)
68. 6 who (19.0)
69. 99 dry (18.9)
70. 37 hair (18.6)
71. 81 smoke (18.5)
72. 8 not (18.3)
73. 4 this (18.2)
74. 24 seed (18.2)
75. 16 woman (17.9)
76. 98 round (17.9)
77. 14 long (17.4)
78. 69 stand (17.1)
79. 97 good (16.9)
80. 17 man (16.7)
81. 94 cold (16.6)
82. 29 flesh (16.4)
83. 50 neck (16.0)
84. 71 say (16.0)
85. 84 burn (15.5)
86. 35 tail (14.9)
87. 78 sand (14.9)
88. 5 that (14.7)
89. 65 walk (14.4)
90. 68 sit (14.3)
91. 10 many (14.2)
92. 9 all (14.1)
93. 59 know (14.1)
94. 80 cloud (13.9)
95. 63 swim (13.6)
96. 49 belly (13.5)
97. 13 big (13.4)
98. 93 hot (11.6)
99. 67 lie (11.2)
100. 15 small (6.3)

Sign languages

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:

1. all
2. animal
3. bad
4. because
5. bird
6. black
7. blood
8. child
9. count
10. day
11. die
12. dirty
13. dog
14. dry
15. dull
16. dust
17. earth
18. egg
19. grease
20. father
21. feather
22. fire
23. fish
24. flower
25. good
26. grass
27. green
28. heavy
29. how
30. hunt
31. husband
32. ice
33. if
34. kill
35. laugh
36. leaf
37. lie
38. live
39. long
40. louse
41. man
42. meat
43. mother
44. mountain
45. name
46. narrow
47. new
48. night
49. not
50. old
51. other
52. person
53. play
54. rain
55. red
56. correct
57. river
58. rope
59. salt
60. sea
61. sharp
62. short
63. sing
64. sit
65. smooth
66. snake
67. snow
68. stand
69. star
70. stone
71. sun
72. tail
73. thin
74. tree
75. vomit
76. warm
77. water
78. wet
79. what
80. when
81. where
82. white
83. who
84. wide
85. wife
86. wind
87. with
88. woman
89. wood
90. worm
91. year
92. yellow
93. full
94. moon
95. brother
96. cat
97. dance
98. pig
99. sister
100. work

See also

• A General Service List of English Words
• Basic English
• Cognate
• Glottochronology
• Historical linguistics
• Indo-European studies
• Intercontinental Dictionary Series
• Lexicostatistics
• Mass lexical comparison
• Proto-language
• Swadesh lists for hundreds of languages at Wiktionary, grouped by language family
• Swadesh lists for hundreds of languages at Wiktionary, listed by individual language
• The (brief) Wiktionary entry for the term 'Swadesh lists'

Other versions

For 207-word "Ishtar versions" with other languages, see Wiktionary:Swadesh list.

References

• Campbell, Lyle. (1998). Historical linguistics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0262532670.
• Embleton, Sheila (1995). Review of ‘An Indo-European classification: A lexicostatistical experiment’ by I. Dyen; J.B. Kruskal & P.Black. TAPS Monograph 82-5, Philadelphia. inDiachronica 12-2/1992:263–68.
• Gudschinsky, Sarah. (1956). The ABC's of lexicostatistics (glottochronology). Word,12, 175–210.
• Hoijer, Harry. (1956). Lexicostatistics: A critique. Language, 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, Wichmann, Brown, Velupillai, Müller, Bakker (2008). "Explorations in automated language classification". Folia Linguistica 42.2: 331–354
• Sankoff, David (1970). "On the Rate of Replacement of Word-Meaning Relationships."Language 46.564–569.
• Starostin (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, 16, 157–167.
• Swadesh, Morris. (1952). Lexicostatistic dating of prehistoric ethnic contacts. Proceedings American Philosophical Society, 96, 452–463.
• Swadesh, Morris. (1955). Towards greater accuracy in lexicostatistic dating. International Journal of American Linguistics, 21, 121–137.
• Swadesh, Morris. (1971). The origin and diversification of language. Edited post mortem by Joel Sherzer. Chicago: Aldine. ISBN 202-01001-5. Contains p 283 final 100-word list!
• Swadesh, Morris, et al. (1972). What is glottochronology? In M. Swadesh, Joel Sherzer (Ed.) The Origin and Diversification of Language (pp. 271–284). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0202308413.
• 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

• Lexico-semantic universals: A critical overview
• Rosetta project
• Swadesh Lists of Brazilian Native Languages