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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
this could be fun! WALS is a large database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials (such as reference grammars) by a team of more than 40 authors (many of them the leading authorities on the subject).
WALS consists of 141 maps with accompanying texts on diverse features (such as vowel inventory size, noun-genitive order, passive constructions, and "hand"/"arm" polysemy), each of which is the responsibility of a single author (or team of authors). Each map shows between 120 and 1110 languages, each language being represented by a symbol, and different symbols showing different values of the feature. Altogether 2,650 languages are shown on the maps, and more than 58,000 datapoints give information on features in particular languages.
WALS thus makes information on the structural diversity of the world's languages available to a large audience, including interested nonlinguists as well as linguists who would not normally read grammars of exotic languages or specialized works by comparative linguists. Although endangered languages are not particularly emphasized, they are automatically foregrounded because of the large sample of languages represented on each map, where each language (independently of its number of speakers) is shown by a single symbol.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 876
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 876 |
I guess I don't get it.. :o(
I tried to find Spanish, but the only place it is listed is in Spain. When I used the search country feature, no matter what country I tried in South America, it doesn't list Spanish, or even any variant such as Castillian. What am I doing wrong?
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
well, the U.S. doesn't seem to have English either. I'm thinking these are all mapped as "native" languages.
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295 |
Indo-European This is what you get for Indo-European. Nice cluster of tiles, but yes, the 'New worlds' seem not to be included.
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