The Swadesh List

[linguaholic]

Have you guys heard about the Swadesh List?  The Swadesh list is a well-known 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. It is used in the quantitative assessment of the genealogical relatedness of languages, aka lexicostatistics) as well as glottochronology .There are different versions of the Swadesh List and there also seems to be a Swadesh List for Sign Languages, essentially containing different vocabulary items, as SL is very different from spoken languages.

 

Here is an example of the Swadesh List:

    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)†
    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)†1
    46.    foot (not leg)
    47.    knee (not 1952)†
    48.    hand
    49.    belly (lower part of body, abdomen)
    50.    neck (not nape!)
    51.    breasts (female; 1955 still breast)†
    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)†
    72.    sun
    73.    moon (not 1952)†
    74.    star
    75.    water (noun)
    76.    rain (noun, 1952 verb)
    77.    stone
    78.    sand
    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 (adjective; 1952 warm, of weather)
    94.    cold (of weather)
    95.    full†
    96.    new
    97.    good
    98.    round (not 1952)†
    99.    dry (substance!)
    100.  name

[linguaholic]

Really? No one? :=)

[czarina84]

This is the first I've heard of the Swadesh List.  I didn't get to this particular post until today.  This is something I definitely have to research further.  Thank you for posting this.

[lushlala]

Aww @Linguaholic....you sound very disappointed LOL!

I can hand on heart say I've never heard of it before this thread, so this is a first. i'm guessing the reason why people haven't responded to this thread is because they have absolute no clue about this. It would be very interesting to see how they document the Swadesh List for Sign Languages, seeing as by its very nature,  SL is not something you articulate and/or write down in words. 

 

[Wanda Kaishin]

I've heard about it, but haven't used it for anything myself. Another list that's pretty popular, is the list of most frequent words; I often see it talked about in language learning discussions. For example "did you know that only 10 words make up 25% of the English language?" type discussions. 

[linguaholic]

9 hours ago, Wanda Kaishin said:

I've heard about it, but haven't used it for anything myself. Another list that's pretty popular, is the list of most frequent words; I often see it talked about in language learning discussions. For example "did you know that only 10 words make up 25% of the English language?" type discussions. 

That's right Wanda. Yes, I heard about that sort of thing. People often talk about Zipf's law when it comes to this 'phenomenon'. 

[Wanda Kaishin]

Thanks - I learned something new today

[anna3101]

With shame I must admit that I haven't heard of it until this day. But now if someone asks me "Have you heard of Swadesh list?", I can proudly say "Why yes, I read about it on linguaholic.com"

I wonder though how I managed to miss it during my university years...

[Chris_A]

Very good info for sure. Totally new to me as well, and I`m definitely going to go online and research as much as I can about this list. You learn something new every day on this forum it seems.