The Global Lexicostatistical Database: General information

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Global Lexicostatistical Database (GLD) is a special side project of the international program «Tower of Babel / Evolution of Human Language». Its major goal is to put together and make available, for specialists and the general public alike, the most complete and thoroughly annotated collection of basic wordlists of the world's languages (commonly known as «Swadesh wordlists», named after the American linguist Morris Swadesh who both devised the concept and came up with the original wordlist that is still frequently used today).

Citation: For general citation purposes, we recommend that this work as a whole be cited as:

Starostin, George (ed.) 2011-2019. The Global Lexicostatistical Database. Moscow: Higher School of Economics, & Santa Fe: Santa Fe Institute. Available online at http://starling.rinet.ru/new100/, accessed on [date of accession].

Individual wordlists should be quoted in accordance with the title of the respective PDF file and with reference to their author(s) / compiler(s) (always indicated at the bottom of the General Description section of each database), e.g.:

Zhivlov, Mikhail. Annotated Swadesh wordlists for the Ob-Ugrian group (Uralic family). 2011. Online version at: Starostin, George (ed.) 2011-2019. The Global Lexicostatistical Database, http://starling.rinet.ru/new100/. Moscow: Higher School of Economics, & Santa Fe: Santa Fe Institute.

Click on the links above to access:

News	List of the latest database updates and user interface modifications.
Mission statement	Brief description of the main goals and challenges of the GLD.
GLD specifics	What makes the GLD different from other similar projects.
Contributors	Information on the people behind the project.
Plans	Improvements that can be expected in the future.
Collaboration	How you can help the project.
Downloads	Various stuff to make life more easy / more interesting.
Publications	List of GLD-related publications in scientific journals and other sources.

The following auxiliary tutorials/papers (also accessible from the main database page) are available as well:

The Global Lexicostatistical Database: General Description

A theoretical/technical outline of the database ideology and structure.

The Global Lexicostatistical Database: A Quick Tutorial

Compact information on how to use the system for various purposes.

Unified Transcription System for the GLD

A general guide to the transcription system into which all the data are transliterated.

An Introduction to Preliminary Lexicostatistics

A paper that discusses the general importance of and new approaches to lexicostatistics.

Semantic Specification of Swadesh List Items

A «guideline» paper on how to properly compile 100-wordlists for optimal results.

Experimental Tree-Building Procedures

A set of preliminary and/or experimental «deep-level» results in lexicostatistical classification.

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