The Global Lexicostatistical Database

The Global Lexicostatistical Database: A Quick Tutorial

This is a quick "Getting Started" guide on how to navigate around the GLD and make use of its content and features.

For additional explanation of the structure and methodology of the project, please check the adjacent Global Lexicostatistical Database: General Description page instead.

General list of things to do

1. BROWSE

1.1. Accessing the databases

1.2. Switching between List and Table views

1.3. Displaying / hiding comments

1.4. Viewing language and database information

1.5. Accessing etymological information

1.6. Sharing thoughts and reporting problems

2. SEARCH

2.1. Basic search options

2.2. Finding a particular Swadesh item in one or more languages

2.3. Forming language- or string-specific queries

3. BUILD

3.1. Basic tree-building options

3.2. Advanced parameters of tree-building

4. SAVE

4.1. View and download wordlists in PDF format

4.2. View and download wordlists in MS Excel format

GENERAL LIST OF THINGS TO DO

Currently, the GLD offers the following services to its users:

— BROWSE: look through 100 (110)-wordlists of various language groups;

— SEARCH: look up specific entries in single or multiple databases;

— BUILD: automatically construct pictures of genealogical trees for groups of languages;

— SAVE: download the wordlists of your choice in PDF or Excel form to your computer.

1. BROWSE

1.1. Accessing the databases

From the title page of the GLD, click on Database list. You will find yourself on the main database list page of the site. The two main options are:

1. View a single wordlist for a single language (dialect), or any pair of wordlists for comparison with each other. To do this, locate the heading Lists for specific languages, select Language 1, (optionally) Language 2, and press the View button:

2. View a whole set of wordlists from languages belonging to a single language group. To do this, locate the heading Multi-language lists, select the wordlist database of your choice, and press View:

Performing any of these actions will take you to the corresponding wordlist page. (Note that these pages are not stored on the site as fixed HTML files, but are automatically generated upon demand from StarLing databases.)

1.2. Switching between List and Table views

By default, the wordlists on wordlist pages are shown in List mode. In this mode, lexical information from different languages is arranged vertically, with each next word displayed on the next line of the list, e. g.:

You can also switch to Table mode, in which lexical information from different languages is aligned horizontally (this is much more visually convenient for databases with small numbers of languages, but can be quite cumbersome for multi-language files). To do this, click on the Change viewing parameters link in the top left corner of the wordlist page (the same link is also included on the main database list page). A new window will open. In this window, check the Use tables box and click Change. You will return to the wordlist page once again, but the same entry will now look as follows:

Note: If you have cookies enabled in your browser, the results of your choice will be remembered for all the following sessions. To return to List view, simply go back to the parameters page, uncheck the Use Tables box and click Change again.

1.3. Displaying / hiding comments

All of the words on GLD lists are always accompanied by comments. By default, they are hidden from view. To read any particular comment on a particular entry, find the small squared plus sign next to that entry and click on it. For instance, clicking on the plus sign in the following entry (from the Anatolian group database)...

...will make it «unfold» as follows:

To hide back the comment, click on the squared minus sign.

Naturally, you may want to unfold all the comments at once. To do that, find the Show all notes option at the top of the displayed wordlist and click on it. (Warning: this might make your screen quite cumbersome if the number of wordlists within the group you are browsing is rather large). To hide them back, click on the Hide all notes option.

1.4. Viewing language and database information

Each database in the GLD is accompanied by a limited amount of textual information (list and brief description of data sources; notes on phonetic transcription and transliteration; name(s) of the person/people responsible for the compilation, etc.).

If you have already generated a wordlist page and are in the process of viewing it, you can make this information unfold directly on the wordlist page. Simply click on the Show database description link (located next to Show All Notes | Hide All Notes). To hide the description once again, click on the Hide database description link to the right.

Alternately, you may want to use the Description link for the corresponding database on the main database list page:

Clicking on this link will take you to a separate page that only contains the database description for the wordlist. You will have to use your browser's Back button to go back to the main database list page.

Note also that each language, represented in the database, is also linked to the basic sociolinguistical information on it at the Ethnologue website. It can be directly accessed from any wordlist page. Just click on the name of the language that you are interested in at the top of the Table (in Table view) or List (in List view):

This click will take you directly to the corresponding page of the Ethnologue. You will have to use your browser's Back button to return to the wordlist page.

1.5. Accessing etymological information

Some (although far from all) of the GLD Swadesh wordlists for particular language groups are linked to their corresponding etymological dictionary databases that are located in the main section of the «Tower of Babel» website. If a certain word on the list corresponds to an etymological entry in one of these databases, this word will appear as a hyperlink on all of the generated wordlist pages and search result pages. Clicking on it will take you directly to its etymology. For instance, clicking on the Chechen word yuq̓ 'ashes' in the wordlist below

will take you to a freshly generated page that contains the following entry from the etymological database of Proto-Nakh (by Sergei Starostin and Sergei Nikolayev), where additional comparative and historical information about the word in question will be available:

Hit the Back button of your browser to return to the Nakh wordlist page.

If no etymological database for the language group in question is available on the Tower of Babel site, all of the words on the lists will appear as plain text (rather than hyperlinks).

1.6. Sharing thoughts and reporting problems

It is quite possible that, at one point or another, you may encounter an error in one of the databases, or, if you are a specialist on a particular language, may want to share some information that could make an important addition to the commentaries. To do this without leaving the wordlist page, just click on the Send comment or report error link in the top left corner of the page. A simple comment form will appear:

Simply fill in your personal data (an E-mail address is necessary so that we may be able to contact you back), enter your error report / improvement suggestion in the main body of the form and click on Send Comment. Your message will be automatically delivered to the GLD coordinators. The script automatically marks the name of the wordlist page from which the message has been sent. We will do our best to check the message, implement the necessary changes if they are deemed necessary, and get back to you with an answer as soon as possible.

2. SEARCH

2.1. Basic search options

The main search algorithm for the GLD is a version of the search algorithm employed for the general etymological databases in the main section of «Tower of Babel», significantly modified to better fit the purposes of the GLD.

There are two general modes of searching for specific information. You can look things up in one particular wordlist, or you can search in several (by default — all) the databases at once. We will first illustrate the main features of the «single database search» procedure.

Select a database on the main database list page and click the corresponding Search link, e.g.:

Clicking on this link will open the Search screen:

From this screen, it is possible to generate two types of queries: (a) finding the equivalents for one of the 110 Swadesh items in all the languages on the list; (b) language- or string-specific queries with various degrees of complexity.

2.2. Finding a particular Swadesh item in one or more languages

To find the equivalents for one of the 110 Swadesh items in all the languages on the list, move your cursor to the first (shortest) white line in the table (intersection of «Word» and «Value»). Clicking on the small triangle will open a scrolling window, from which you can select one of the items:

Then click on the Search button. This will open a new window where your search results will be displayed in list or in table form, depending on your current settings. For instance, if you have selected 'bite', you should get the following query result (in table mode):

You may want to see the required word in some rather than all the languages of the group (especially understandable if the group in question contains more languages than can fit on one screen). To do that, before pressing Search, uncheck the small Include in report? boxes next to the names of the languages that you do not need in your query results. Thus, unchecking the box next to Abanyom in our current example will make the computer ignore Abanyom data, with the result looking as follows:

2.3. Forming language- or string-specific queries

Looking up one particular Swadesh item on the wordlist is fun, but not altogether useful, since it can also be very quickly done while simply browsing through the entire database. Much more important is the ability to form various specific queries, such as (using the same Ekoid database as an example):

Find all of the Ejagham words that contain the sound k;

Find all of the Ejagham words that begin with k-;

Find all the words that contain r in Ejagham and d in Abanyom;

Find all the words in all listed Ekoid languages that include the sequence la;

Find all the Swadesh items for which the Abanyom equivalent is not attested;

Find all the Swadesh items in all listed Ekoid languages with noted cases of polysemy, etc.

In order to form such queries (which can be even more complex depending on the user's wishes), it is necessary to understand the search parameters. Let us look at the query input screen more closely:

The legend is as follows:

FIELD: Name of the fields that contain all the information. This includes numbers of the Swadesh items, from 1 to 110 (Number), the items themselves (Word), their principal equivalents in all the languages in the database (Ejagham, Nkem, Abanyom), and, separately, notes on all these languages (Ejagham notes, etc.).

INCLUDE IN REPORT?: Checking and unchecking these little boxes next to each field will make the respective fields appear or disappear in your query result.

VALUE: This is where you enter what you are searching for — a string of symbols (a letter, a sequence of letters, a word, or even a phrase, although phrases can be encountered only in «Notes» fields). Note that you may fill in as many fields as you want. For instance, a query like this...

...will yield only those Swadesh items, the equivalents for which have a y in Ejagham, Nkem, and Abanyom. (The logical operation OR is not yet incorporated into the search algorithm).

QUERY METHOD: There are four different ways in which the search algorithm can understand the input strings of characters:

Match substring:	By default, the algorithm just gives you all the entries in which the string has been encountered. Thus, looking for the string y in Ejagham will yield such words as ò=yà 'belly', yûm 'bite', è=yǜg 'cold', yûi 'kill', ɛ̀=yâ 'year', etc.
Match beginning:	The algorithm only returns the entries in which the string has been encountered in the initial position. Therefore, looking for y in Ejagham will yield such words as yûm 'bite', yûi 'kill', but not ò=yà 'belly' or è=yǜg 'cold', since the latter do not begin with y.
Like beginning:	The algorithm returns the entries whose beginning is not only identical with the input string, but is also phonetically similar to it. (Definition of what constitutes «phonetic similarity» in StarLing algorithms can be found here, in section 2). Thus, looking for the string at in Ejagham will yield such words as ɛ̀tí-ɛ̀tî 'many' and ɛ̂d 'we', since they are judged by the machine as phonetically similar to at.
Like substring:	The algorithm returns the entries any part of which (not just the beginning) is phonetically similar to the input string. Thus, looking for the string t in Ejagham, in addition to ɛ̀tí-ɛ̀tî 'many' and ɛ̂d 'we', will yield such words as =kpídì 'near' and =sǝ́dɛ́ 'say', because their middle parts (-di, -dɛ) are phonetically similar to t.

WHOLE WORDS: The algorithm will only return those results in which the string that you have entered forms an entire word, not part of the word. Thus, looking for the string ka in Ejagham with the option Whole words unchecked will return two results: =kárè 'give' and ka- 'not'. If the option Whole Words is checked, the algorithm will only return ka-, but not =kárè.

NOT EMPTY: This option only makes sense if you specify conditions for several fields at once. For instance, you may want to look up all the Swadesh items, (a) whose equivalents in Ejagham contain the letter r and (b) whose equivalents both in Nkem and Abanyom are attested (i. e. are not represented by empty cells). You then form your query as follows:

i. e. put r in Value for Ejagham and check the Not empty boxes on Nkem and Abanyom. If you do not check these boxes, one of the query results that you will get will be:

i. e. a word with r in Ejagham, but no attested equivalents in either Nkem or Abanyom. If you check both boxes (or even one), this particular result will not appear, but others will, e. g.:

It is also possible to make good use of some of the «rigid» format peculiarities employed in the annotations. For instance, in most cases when a certain word shows polysemy, the annotation to that word contains the formula: «Polysemy: 'meaning 1 / meaning 2 / ... / meaning n'». Thus, if you want to find all instances of polysemy in Ekoid languages, your query has to be as follows:

This prompts the script to yield all the database entries that contain the word 'polysemy' in any field of the database, including annotation fields. The result (with annotations «unfolded») will be as follows:

... meaning that, for the given three Ekoid languages, altogether four instances of polysemy have been recorded in the database. (This may not, of course, be an exhaustive list: the correctness and fullness of information on polysemy depends significantly upon the quality of the source material).

3. BUILD

3.1. Basic tree-building options

If there are two or more different wordlists entered in a single language group database, the GLD allows the user to automatically construct a genealogical tree of all the languages in the group, based on calculating the percentages of lexical matches («cognates») and using the «neighbor joining» method to convert this data into tree-form. Along the way, one of several possible glottochronological formulae is also applied to the data, establishing approximate absolute separation dates for various languages included in the tree. The resulting tree appears as an image and may be saved to your computer.

To build a tree in on-line mode, open any single database (e. g. Nakh) in View mode. Locate the Build tree option:

Clicking on Build tree will uncover the following set of parameters:

Click on Build to get the picture of a genealogical tree for the language group:

The numbers on top represent glottochronological dating (in millennia). This picture is interpreted as follows: «Proto-Nakh» splits in two branches, Batsbi and Chechen-Ingush, approximately at the very beginning of the 1st millennium A.D. (= 0.00); later, Chechen and Ingush split from each other sometime in between 750 (= 0.75) and 1000 (= 1.00) A.D.

By default, the picture is produced in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. This is very convenient for certain purposes of analysis; however, SVG images are not always easily saved to disc from within browsers. You may choose to change the image format to Portable Network Graphics (PNG) instead, simply by switching the Tree format (SVG / PNG) option to PNG.

Click on the Close option to remove tree images and tree-building parameters from the screen.

3.2. Advanced parameters of tree-building

There is no single way of building an «intrinsically correct» genealogical tree of languages based on percentages of lexicostatistical matches: the best results are always attained by comparing several different trees. The following parameters of the on-line tree-building mechanism are flexible and can be «manipulated» by the user before generating a picture:

a) Method: For now, you can choose between three different options:

Fixed rate – The default method consists of applying the «basic» formula of glottochronology (borrowed by M. Swadesh from the methodology of radiocarbon analysis, and significantly modified by S. Starostin; see here for a detailed explanation) to the matrix of cognate percentages. «Fixed rate» implies the idea of a constant rate of lexical replacement, which, by default, equals 5.0 (i. e. approximately 5 out of 100 Swadesh items replaced in any language per 1 millennium).

Variable rate – A slightly more complicated method that should be applied whenever the calculations are performed on an abbreviated version of a Swadesh list (e. g. 50 rather than 100 items). Here, individual replacement rates are assigned to each item on the list, with those that are empirically known to be more stable over time (e. g. 'I', 'thou', 'eye', 'name', etc.) assigned slower rates of replacement than those whose meanings, on the average, «fluctuate» far more frequently (e. g. 'earth', 'bark (of tree)', 'yellow', 'small', etc.).

Swadesh formula – The original «classic» version of the glottochronological formula that does not make use of additional corrections, introduced by S. Starostin. Rate of replacement, by default, equals 14 words per millennium.

b) Replacement rate: When using Fixed rate or Swadesh formula methods to generate the tree, it is possible to manually «fix» the average replacement rate, changing it from its default values of 5 words per 1000 years (Fixed rate) or 14 words per 1000 years (Swadesh formula). Normally, this parameter should not be tampered with, but it has been included nevertheless, for experimental purposes.

c) Process meanings until rank: In the «Variable rate» method, each Swadesh item is assigned a «rank» (from 1 to 100, or from 1 to 110 in the slightly expanded variant of the list) based on its average stability across the world (see here for a detailed explanation and a list of the rankings). It is possible to limit the data to a subset of the 100(110)-wordlist that only includes the more stable items, e. g. change 110 to 50 or any other number (although any number less than 40 ~ 50 will most likely yield unrealistic results). For reliable results, tampering with this parameter is only recommended in conjunction with the Variable rate method of tree generation.

d) Ignore cognation indexes and rely on phonetic similarity instead: Putting a check mark in this window will make the tree-building ignore all the etymological cognation indexes that have been manually entered by researchers during the construction of wordlists and, when browsing through the database, are visible as superscript indexes next to individual words. Instead, the algorithm will try to «objectively» re-assign cognation indexes to words, based on trivial phonetic similarity between their consonantal structures. (See here for a more detailed explanation), and use these indexes to calculate dates of divergences and generate a tree. Please note that, in most cases, the results of this method will be historically wrong rather than simply unreliable; it is included mainly for experimental purposes.

Each different combination of these parameters will, most likely, yield a different tree. Having entered in your modifications, press the Build button once again to re-generate the picture.

4. SAVE

4.1. View and download wordlists in PDF format

All of the wordlist data published in the GLD can be saved on your computer for offline use. For the users' convenience, we currently include downloadable wordlists in two formats: PDF and Microsoft Excel.

To open a wordlist in PDF format from within your Internet browser (if you have an Adobe Acrobat plugin installed), go to the main database list page and left-click on the pdf option next to the wordlist of your choice, e.g.:

If you wish to save the .pdf file to your computer, right-click the same link and choose the Save link as... option.

Each PDF file stores the full contents of the corresponding online database, including the general file description and all of the annotations. It is paginated and can be easily printed out. PDF files, however, cannot be edited for the user's own purposes.

4.2. View and download wordlists in MS Excel format

To save the wordlist in MS Excel format, go to the main database list page and either left-click on the xls option next to the wordlist of your choice, or right-click on it and choose the Save link as... option:

Each Ms Excel file stores the full contents of the corresponding online database (including all the annotations), except for the general file description. It is open for editing and can be used for various further purposes.

Note: In order to view all the symbols correctly, you must download and install the default font for the GLD: Starling Serif. Most of the transcriptional symbols are standard Unicode and will be visible with any Unicode fonts, but some (e. g. «monolithic» combinations of letters with several diacritics) are only found in the user-defined area of Starling Serif and will show up as squares or other kinds of «dirt» if the proper font is not installed.