14.1367, Sum: Parallel Multilingual Wordlists

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-14-1367. Tue May 13 2003. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 14.1367, Sum: Parallel Multilingual Wordlists

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U.<aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Dry, Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org):
	Simin Karimi, U. of Arizona
	Terence Langendoen, U. of Arizona

Home Page:  http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Steve Moran <steve at linguistlist.org>
 ==========================================================================
To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html.
=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Tue, 13 May 2003 10:43:38 +0000
From:  Daniel Wedgwood <dan at ling.ed.ac.uk>
Subject:  Sum: Parallel multilingual wordlists

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Tue, 13 May 2003 10:43:38 +0000
From:  Daniel Wedgwood <dan at ling.ed.ac.uk>
Subject:  Sum: Parallel multilingual wordlists

About a month ago I posted an enquiry (Linguist 14.1083) about the
availability of parallel word lists (as opposed to lists of cognates)
in different languages. I got the impression from some of the
responses that there are others out there who would appreciate as much
information on this as possible, so I'm including here not just a
summary of responses but also some sources of data that I found by
other means.

Many thanks to everyone who responded. Here is a summary of the
responses:

Robin Thelwall <eubule at telusplanet.net> kindly offered offprints and
references relating to work done by himself and others containing
lists for a number of Nilo-Saharan languages and ''various bits of
Bantu''.

Radmila Djordjevic <ralju at sezampro.yu> pointed out the existence of
Berlitz multilingual European dictionaries, which are primarily aimed
at tourists, but could be of use to linguists seeking parallel data
for multiple languages.

Yuri Koryakov <jirik at pisem.net> suggested looking at the very rich
source of multilingual vocabulary data on Sergei Starostin's Babel
Tower website:

http://starling.rinet.ru/download.htm

This turns out to be organised generally around cognates, so Yuri was
kind enough to send a number of 100-word Swadesh lists which he has in
files in .dbf format.

Natalia Slaska <Natalia.Slaska at sheffield.ac.uk> sent pointers to a
large number of useful resources. First, the website of the project
that she is involved in, which will interest people who are working
with word lists for historical linguistic purposes:

http://www.shef.ac.uk/english/language/quantling/index.html

Second, an extremely useful set of references to printed works
containing Swadesh lists for various languages. Many are from issues
of IJAL from the 1950s and 60s. Space doesn't allow me to reproduce
all the references here; I'd be happy to forward them to anyone who
asks.

To all these very useful suggestions, I would add the following
resources:

http://www.rosettaproject.org has a database of Swadesh lists for a wide
variety of languages, but few of them are complete.

Dyen, Isidore, Joseph B Kruskal, and Paul Black (1992) An Indoeuropean
Classification: A Lexicostatistical Experiment, Transactions of the
American Philosophical Society, vol. 82, part 5.  Large data set (95
languages/dialects) available online at:

http://www.wordgumbo.com/ie/cmp/iedata.txt

Also at www.wordgumbo.com is a collection of lists taken from various
small online dictionaries - these are not identical lists, but many
overlap to a worthwhile extent.

Jacques Guy's GLOTTO program comes with 200-word lists for 16
Indoeuropean languages. The meanings are not the Swadesh list, but
mainly nouns taken from Bergman, Peter (1968) The Concise Dictionary
of 26 Languages in Simultaneous Translation, Signet Books.  For online
availability, see Guy's posting to the Linguist List, (Linguist 5.630).

1600-word lists for English, Italian, German, Dutch and the invented
languages Esperanto, Novial and Tsolyani can be downloaded from

http://www.invisiblelighthouse.com/uld/uld2.html

(Permission is requested by the website owner for use of these data in
research.)

200-word lists for 7 languages used in Kessler, B. (2001) The
significance of word lists, Stanford: Center for the Study of Language
and Information.  are available as a well-annotated XML file from
Brett Kessler's website:

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~bkessler/

Tryon, Darrel (1995) Comparative Austronesian Dictionary. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter.  is apparently a possible source of parallel word
lists for Austronesian languages (I haven't yet seen a copy myself).

I've found many of these very useful; others should suit the research
aims of other list-hunters.

Dan Wedgwood
Theoretical and Applied Linguistics,
University of Edinburgh

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-14-1367