A Swadesh list is one of several lists of vocabulary with basic meanings, developed by Morris Swadesh

Morris Swadesh

Morris Swadesh was an influential and controversial American linguist. In his work, he applied basic concepts in historical linguistics to the Indigenous languages of the Americas...

 from 1940 onward, with the final, posthumously published version 1971 [1972], which is used in lexicostatistics

Lexicostatistics

Lexicostatistics is an approach to comparative linguistics that involves quantitative comparison of lexical cognates. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a proto-language...

 (quantitative language relatedness assessment) and glottochronology

Glottochronology

Glottochronology is that part of lexicostatistics dealing with the chronological relationship between languages....

 (language divergence dating).

Versions and authors

There are several versions of Swadesh alone. Swadesh started (1950:p161) with a list of 225 meanings, reduced there to 165 words for the Salish language; in 1952: p456f he published a list of 215 meanings, of which he suggested to cancel 16 not universal or clear enough, with one added to arrive at 200 words. In 1955: p127 he again listed a "lexi(costatisti)cal test list" with 215 meanings, of which the 92 most favourable ones were marked with an asterisk. Eight better suitable ones were added to reach the full 100 universe, again improved and finally published in 1971:p283 and 1972. This final 100-word list of 1971:p283 (=1972) was the result of his lifetime experience, repeatedly tested for universal usability and unambiguity. Thus, this one alone deserves the label "Swadesh list" and is now listed below.

Other versions of lexicostatistical test lists were published e.g. by R.B. Lees

Robert Lees (linguist)

-Education:Lees went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1956 to work on its machine translation project. He first came to notice with an influential review of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures , and his 1960 book The Grammar of English Nominalizations...

 (1953), John A. Rea (1958), D. Wilson (1969 with 57 meanings), M.L. Bender

Lionel Bender (linguist)

Marvin Lionel Bender was an American author and co-author of several books, publications and essays regarding African languages, particularly from Ethiopia and Sudan. He retired from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He did extensive work in all four language families of Ethiopia: Semitic,...

 (1969), R.L. Oswald (1971), W.P. Lehmann

Winfred P. Lehmann

Winfred P. Lehmann was an American linguist noted for his work in historical linguistics, particularly Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic, as well as for pioneering work in machine translation.-Biography:After receiving B.A. in Humanities at the Northwestern College in Watertown in 1936, he...

 (1984), D. Ringe (1992, passim, different versions), S.A. Starostin (1984, passim, different versions), William S.Y. Wang (1994), M. Lohr (2000, 128 meanings in 18 languages). B. Kessler (2002), and many others.
Frequently used, not for any proven quality, but for its electronical availability via the internet is the version of I.Dyen (1992, 200 meanings of 95 language variants).

Principle

One of frequent errors about Swadesh's principle has been that it had been chosen as a "basic" list in the sense of language acquisition, e.g. comparable to the "Basic English Vocabulary". A second frequent error is the assumption that Swadesh chose the meanings for their stability. In fact the lists were chosen for their universal, cultural independent, availability in as many languages as possible. Nevertheless, stability has been analyzed by different authors, e.g. M. Lohr 1999,2000.

Usage in lexicostatistics and glottochronology

Such lexicostatistical test lists are used in lexicostatistics

Lexicostatistics

Lexicostatistics is an approach to comparative linguistics that involves quantitative comparison of lexical cognates. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a proto-language...

 to define the subgrouping of languages, and in glottochronology

Glottochronology

Glottochronology is that part of lexicostatistics dealing with the chronological relationship between languages....

 to "provide dates for branching-points in the tree" . Note that the task of defining (and counting the number) of cognate words in the list is far from trivial, and too 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. For example, English 'wheel' and Sanskrit 'chakra

Chakra

Chakra is a concept originating in Hindu texts, featured in tantric and yogic traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Its name derives from the Sanskrit word for "wheel" or "turning" .Chakra is a concept referring to wheel-like vortices...

' are cognates, although they are not recognizable as such without knowledge of the history of both languages.
For more details, see the main articles.

Original final Swadesh list (1971:283, postmortem)

Essential explanations are only given in Swadesh 1952:456-7 and 1955* (Hans J. Holm 2011-04-20).

No. Meaning / Concept

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 (male human)
18. person (human being)
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)*7
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)*6
46. foot (not leg)
47. knee (not 1952)*5
48. hand
49. belly (lower part of body, abdomen)
50. neck (not nape!)
51. breasts (female; 1955 still breast)*8
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)*1
72. sun
73. moon (not 1952)*2
74. star
75. water (noun)
76. rain (noun, 1952 verb)
77. stone
78. sand (opposite to following)
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 (adverb; 1952 warm, of weather)
94. cold (of weather)
95. full *4
96. new
97. good
98. round (not 1952)*3
99. dry (substance!)
100. name

Shorter lists

The Swadesh–Yakhontov list is a 35-word subset of the Swadesh list posited as especially stable by Russian linguist Sergei Yakhontov (Starostin 1991). It has been used in lexicostatistics

Lexicostatistics

Lexicostatistics is an approach to comparative linguistics that involves quantitative comparison of lexical cognates. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a proto-language...

 by linguists such as Sergei Starostin

Sergei Starostin

Dr. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin was a Russian historical linguist and scholar, best known for his work with hypothetical proto-languages, including his work on the reconstruction of the Proto-Borean language, the controversial theory of Altaic languages and the formulation of the Dené–Caucasian...

. With their Swadesh numbers, they are:

1. I

2. you (singular)

7. this

11. who

12. what

22. one

23. two

45. fish

47. dog

48. louse

64. blood

65. bone

67. egg

68. horn

69. tail

73. ear

74. eye

75. nose

77. tooth

78. tongue

83. hand

103. know

109. die

128. give

147. sun

148. moon

150. water

155. salt

156. stone

163. wind

167. fire

179. year

182. full

183. new

207. name

Holman et al. (2008) found that the Swadesh-Yakhontov list was less accurate than the Swadesh-100 list in identifying the relationships between Chinese dialects. However, they calculated the relative stability of the words by comparing retentions between languages in established language families, and found that a different 40-word list was just as accurate as the Swadesh-100 list. 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):

1. 22 *louse (42.8)
2. 12 *two (39.8)
3. 75 *water (37.4)
4. 39 *ear (37.2)
5. 61 *die (36.3)
6. 1 *I (35.9)
7. 53 *liver (35.7)
8. 40 *eye (35.4)
9. 48 *hand (34.9)
10. 58 *hear (33.8)
11. 23 *tree (33.6)
12. 19 *fish (33.4)
13. 100 *name (32.4)
14. 77 *stone (32.1)
15. 43 *tooth (30.7)
16. 51 *breasts (30.7)
17. 2 *you (30.6)
18. 85 *path (30.2)
19. 31 *bone (30.1)
20. 44 *tongue (30.1)
21. 28 *skin (29.6)
22. 92 *night (29.6)
23. 25 *leaf (29.4)
24. 76 rain (29.3)
25. 62 kill (29.2)
26. 30 *blood (29.0)
27. 34 *horn (28.8)
28. 18 *person (28.7)
29. 47 *knee (28.0)
30. 11 *one (27.4)
31. 41 *nose (27.3)
32. 95 *full (26.9)
33. 66 *come (26.8)
34. 74 *star (26.6)
35. 86 *mountain (26.2)
36. 82 *fire (25.7)
37. 3 *we (25.4)
38. 54 *drink (25.0)
39. 57 *see (24.7)
40. 27 bark (24.5)
41. 96 *new (24.3)
42. 21 *dog (24.2)
43. 72 *sun (24.2)
44. 64 fly (24.1)
45. 32 grease (23.4)
46. 73 moon (23.4)
47. 70 give (23.3)
48. 52 heart (23.2)
49. 36 feather (23.1)
50. 90 white (22.7)
51. 89 yellow (22.5)
52. 20 bird (21.8)
53. 38 head (21.7)
54. 79 earth (21.7)
55. 46 foot (21.6)
56. 91 black (21.6)
57. 42 mouth (21.5)
58. 88 green (21.1)
59. 60 sleep (21.0)
60. 7 what (20.7)
61. 26 root (20.5)
62. 45 claw (20.5)
63. 56 bite (20.5)
64. 83 ash (20.3)
65. 87 red (20.2)
66. 55 eat (20.0)
67. 33 egg (19.8)
68. 6 who (19.0)
69. 99 dry (18.9)
70. 37 hair (18.6)
71. 81 smoke (18.5)
72. 8 not (18.3)
73. 4 this (18.2)
74. 24 seed (18.2)
75. 16 woman (17.9)
76. 98 round (17.9)
77. 14 long (17.4)
78. 69 stand (17.1)
79. 97 good (16.9)
80. 17 man (16.7)
81. 94 cold (16.6)
82. 29 flesh (16.4)
83. 50 neck (16.0)
84. 71 say (16.0)
85. 84 burn (15.5)
86. 35 tail (14.9)
87. 78 sand (14.9)
88. 5 that (14.7)
89. 65 walk (14.4)
90. 68 sit (14.3)
91. 10 many (14.2)
92. 9 all (14.1)
93. 59 know (14.1)
94. 80 cloud (13.9)
95. 63 swim (13.6)
96. 49 belly (13.5)
97. 13 big (13.4)
98. 93 hot (11.6)
99. 67 lie (11.2)
100. 15 small (6.3)

Signed languages

In studying the sign languages of Vietnam

Vietnamese sign languages

Sign language varieties in Ho Chi Minh city, Hanoi, and Haiphong are usually considered to be separate languages. However, there are attempts to develop a national standard language, Vietnamese Sign Language....

 and Thailand

Thai Sign Language

Thai Sign Language or Modern Standard Thai Sign Language , is the national sign language of Thailand's Deaf community and is used in most parts of the country by the 20% of the estimated 56,000 pre-linguistically deaf people who go to school...

, linguist James Woodward noted that the traditional Swadesh list applied to spoken languages was unsuited for sign languages. The use of those lists would result in overestimation in the relationships between sign languages. He compiled a modification for sign language comparison by removing indexic signs which would show as potential cognates in other lists. As follows

1. all
2. animal
3. bad
4. because
5. bird
6. black
7. blood
8. child
9. count
10. day
11. die
12. dirty
13. dog
14. dry
15. dull
16. dust
17. earth
18. egg
19. grease
20. father
21. feather
22. fire
23. fish
24. flower
25. good
26. grass
27. green
28. heavy
29. how
30. hunt
31. husband
32. ice
33. if
34. kill
35. laugh
36. leaf
37. lie
38. live
39. long
40. louse
41. man
42. meat
43. mother
44. mountain
45. name
46. narrow
47. new
48. night
49. not
50. old
51. other
52. person
53. play
54. rain
55. red
56. correct
57. river
58. rope
59. salt
60. sea
61. sharp
62. short
63. sing
64. sit
65. smooth
66. snake
67. snow
68. stand
69. star
70. stone
71. sun
72. tail
73. thin
74. tree
75. vomit
76. warm
77. water
78. wet
79. what
80. when
81. where
82. white
83. who
84. wide
85. wife
86. wind
87. with
88. woman
89. wood
90. worm
91. year
92. yellow
93. full
94. moon
95. brother
96. cat
97. dance
98. pig
99. sister
100. work

See also

• A General Service List of English Words
  A General Service List of English Words
  The General Service List is a list of roughly 2000 words published by Michael West in 1953. The words were selected to represent the most frequent words of English and were taken from a corpus of written English. The target audience was English language learners and ESL teachers...
  
  
• Basic English
  Basic English
  Basic English, also known as Simple English, is an English-based controlled language created by linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teaching English as a Second Language...
  
  
• Cognate
  Cognate
  In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
  
  
• Glottochronology
  Glottochronology
  Glottochronology is that part of lexicostatistics dealing with the chronological relationship between languages....
  
  
• Historical linguistics
  Historical linguistics
  Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
  
  
• Indo-European studies
  Indo-European studies
  Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. Its goal is to amass information about the hypothetical proto-language from which all of these languages are descended, a language dubbed Proto-Indo-European , and its speakers, the...
  
  
• Intercontinental Dictionary Series
  Intercontinental Dictionary Series
  The Intercontinental Dictionary Series is a large database of topical vocabulary lists in various world languages. The general editor of the database is Bernard Comrie of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig. Mary Ritchie Key of the University of California, Irvine is the...
  
  
• Lexicostatistics
  Lexicostatistics
  Lexicostatistics is an approach to comparative linguistics that involves quantitative comparison of lexical cognates. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a proto-language...
  
  
• Mass lexical comparison
  Mass lexical comparison
  Mass comparison is a method developed by Joseph Greenberg to determine the level of genetic relatedness between languages. It is now usually called multilateral comparison...
  
  
• Proto-language
  Proto-language
  A proto-language in the tree model of historical linguistics is the common ancestor of the languages that form a language family. Occasionally, the German term Ursprache is used instead.Often the proto-language is not known directly...
  
  
• Swadesh lists for hundreds of languages at Wiktionary, grouped by language family
• Swadesh lists for hundreds of languages at Wiktionary, listed by individual language
• The (brief) Wiktionary entry for the term 'Swadesh lists'

Other versions

For 207-word "Ishtar versions" with other languages, see Wiktionary:Swadesh list.

External links

• Lexico-semantic universals: A critical overview
• Rosetta project
• Swadesh Lists of Brazilian Native Languages