basic word list

[MJ Hardman]

There is the old famous Swadesh list which I use in Field Methods.  It works
quite well if you do not expect words for everything on the list ‹ and do
not ask for Œwords¹.  Also, if you know something about the area where you
are, some judicious editing of the list can give good initial results.

If you are looking for signs of loss, that is a far more complex problem
because it has so much to do with the nature of a dominant language, the
nature of religious impositions, and the nature of commercial exchanges. As
one can see by English, languages can borrow even most of its vocabulary
without ceasing to be a living language.  Numbers may go with commercial
exchanges; kinship terms may go with religious impositions.  Word loss is
not necessarily the definition of language decline.

I don¹t think the kind of list you are looking for exists, though the
Swadesh still works even for such things, at least in part; where a language
does have approximations for items on the list they do tend to be the last
to be lost.  His formulas didn¹t quite work but they didn¹t quite not work
either.

Dr. MJ Hardman
Doctora Honoris Causa UNMSM, Lima, Perú
website:  http://at.ufl.edu/~hardman-grove/



On 5/24/10 6:16 PM, "Mary Holbrock" <maryholbrock at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> can anyone direct me to what might be considered a basic word list that people
> should know in their native language?  or word categories perhaps? in other
> words, if speakers of a given language no longer know family member words or
> numbers, might the language be considered to be in decline? thanks for any
> help in this area

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