The Swadesh list (/ˈswɑːdɛʃ/) is a compilation of tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. Translations of the Swadesh list into a set of languages allow researchers to quantify the interrelatedness of those languages. The Swadesh list is named after linguist Morris Swadesh. It is used in lexicostatistics (the quantitative assessment of the genealogical relatedness of languages) and glottochronology (the dating of language divergence). Because there are several different lists, some authors also refer to "Swadesh lists".
Morris Swadesh created several versions of his list. He started[1] with a list of 215 meanings (falsely introduced as a list of 225 meanings in the paper due to a spelling error[2]), which he reduced to 165 words for the Salish-Spokane-Kalispel language. In 1952, he published a list of 215 meanings,[3] of which he suggested the removal of 16 for being unclear or not universal, with one added to arrive at 200 words. In 1955,[4] he wrote, "The only solution appears to be a drastic weeding out of the list, in the realization that quality is at least as important as quantity. Even the new list has defects, but they are relatively mild and few in number." After minor corrections, the final 100-word list was published posthumously in 1971[5] and 1972.
Other versions of lexicostatistical test lists were published e.g. by Robert Lees (1953), John A. Rea (1958:145f), Dell Hymes (1960:6), E. Cross (1964 with 241 concepts), W. J. Samarin (1967:220f), D. Wilson (1969 with 57 meanings), Lionel Bender (1969), R. L. Oswald (1971), Winfred P. Lehmann (1984:35f), D. Ringe (1992, passim, different versions), Sergei Starostin (1984, passim, different versions), William S-Y. Wang (1994), M. Lohr (2000, 128 meanings in 18 languages). B. Kessler (2002), and many others. The Concepticon,[6] a project hosted at the Cross-Linguistic Linked Data (CLLD) project, collects various concept lists (including classical Swadesh lists) across different linguistic areas and times, currently listing 240 different concept lists.[7]
Frequently used and widely available on the internet, is the version by Isidore Dyen (1992, 200 meanings of 95 language variants). Since 2010, a team around Michael Dunn has tried to update and enhance that list.[8]
In origin, the words in the Swadesh lists were chosen for their universal, culturally independent availability in as many languages as possible, regardless of their "stability". Nevertheless, the stability of the resulting list of "universal" vocabulary under language change and the potential use of this fact for purposes of glottochronology have been analyzed by numerous authors, including Marisa Lohr 1999, 2000.[9]
The Swadesh list was put together by Morris Swadesh on the basis of his intuition. Similar more recent lists, such as the Dolgopolsky list (1964) or the Leipzig–Jakarta list (2009), are based on systematic data from many different languages, but they are not yet as widely known nor as widely used as the Swadesh list.
Usage in lexicostatistics and glottochronology[edit]
Lexicostatistical test lists are used in lexicostatistics to define subgroupings of languages, and in glottochronology to "provide dates for branching points in the tree".[10] The task of defining (and counting the number) of cognate words in the list is far from trivial, and 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.
Swadesh's final list, published in 1971,[5] contains 100 terms. Explanations of the terms can be found in Swadesh 1952[3] or, where noted by a dagger (†), in Swadesh 1955. Note that only this original sequence clarifies the correct meaning which is lost in an alphabetical order, e.g., in the case "27. bark" (originally without the specification here added).
^ "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, extinct, or lesser known languages.
The 110-item Global Lexicostatistical Database list uses the original 100-item Swadesh list, in addition to 10 other words from the Swadesh–Yakhontov list.[11]
The most used list nowadays is the Swadesh 207-word list, adapted from Swadesh 1952.[3]
In Wiktionary ("Swadesh lists by language"), Panlex[12][13] and in Palisto's "Swadesh Word List of Indo-European languages",[14] hundreds of Swadesh lists in this form can be found.
The Swadesh–Yakhontov list is a 35-word subset of the Swadesh list posited as especially stable by Russian linguist Sergei Yakhontov around the 1960s, although the list was only officially published in 1991.[15] It has been used in lexicostatistics by linguists such as Sergei Starostin. With their Swadesh numbers, they are:[16]
I
you (singular)
this
who
what
one
two
fish
dog
louse
blood
bone
egg
horn
tail
ear
eye
nose
tooth
tongue
hand
know
die
give
sun
moon
water
salt
stone
wind
fire
year
full
new
name
Holman et al. (2008) found that in identifying the relationships between Chinese dialects the Swadesh–Yakhontov list was less accurate than the original Swadesh-100 list. Further they found that a different (40-word) list (also known as the ASJP list) was just as accurate as the Swadesh-100 list. However, they calculated the relative stability of the words by comparing retentions between languages in established language families. 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):
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:[17]
Dolgopolsky list — the 15 words that change least as languages evolve
Leipzig–Jakarta list — 100 words resistant to borrowing, used to estimate chronological separation of languages, intended to improve on the Swadesh list
Intercontinental Dictionary Series — a database of vocabulary lists in over 200 languages, especially indigenous South American and Northeast Caucasian
Linguistic concepts and fields
Cognate — a word derived from the same word as another
^List, J.-M. (2018): Towards a history of concept list compilation in historical linguistics. History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences 5.10. URL
^List, J.-M., M. Cysouw, and R. Forkel (2016): Concepticon. A resource for the linking of concept lists. In: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation. 2393-2400. PDF
^Marisa Lohr (2000), "New Approaches to Lexicostatistics and Glottochronology" in C. Renfrew, A. McMahon and L. Trask, ed. Time Depth in Historical Linguistics, Vol. 1, pp. 209–223
^Sheila Embleton (1992), in W. Bright, ed., International Encyclopaedia of Linguistics, Oxford University Press, p. 131
Campbell, Lyle. (1998). Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN0-262-53267-0.
Embleton, Sheila (1995). Review of An Indo-European Classification: A Lexicostatistical Experiment by Isidore Dyen, J.B. Kruskal and P.Black. TAPS Monograph 82–5, Philadelphia. in Diachronica Vol. 12, no. 2, 263–68.
Gudschinsky, Sarah. (1956). "The ABCs of Lexicostatistics (Glottochronology)." Word, Vol. 12, 175–210.
Hoijer, Harry. (1956). "Lexicostatistics: A Critique." Language, Vol. 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, Eric W., Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Viveka Velupillai, André Müller, Dik Bakker (2008). "Explorations in Automated Language Classification". Folia Linguistica, Vol. 42, no. 2, 331–354
Sankoff, David (1970). "On the Rate of Replacement of Word-Meaning Relationships." Language, Vol. 46, 564–569.
Starostin, Sergei (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, Vol. 16, 157–167.
Swadesh, Morris. (1952). "Lexicostatistic Dating of Prehistoric Ethnic Contacts." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 96, 452–463.
Swadesh, Morris. (1971). The Origin and Diversification of Language. Ed. post mortem by Joel Sherzer. Chicago: Aldine. ISBN0-202-01001-5. Contains final 100-word list on p. 283.
Swadesh, Morris, et al. (1972). "What is Glottochronology?" in Morris Swadesh and Joel Sherzer, ed., The Origin and Diversification of Language, pp. 271–284. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN0-202-30841-3.
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]
