Basic vocabulary
Basic vocabulary is a concept that is frequently encountered in __.
Lists for historical comparison
Swadesh-50 list
Distinct "stability quotients" have been determined for each of the Swadesh-100 entries by Sergei Starostin. On this basis, George Starostin proposes establishing a shortened version of the list for surveying the genetical affiliation of languages. For reasons of practicality, he excludes also a number of relatively stable word roots that show other issues:
- the pronouns "this" and "that": the structure of demonstrative pronoun systems in the world's languages may vary, and short monosyllabic demonstrative roots are prone to accidental similarities
- 'liver', a word frequently unrecorded in superficial surveys
- 'fish', a concept frequently unknown in desert communities
- 'neck', "breast": prone to sound-symbolism and polysemy (versus "throat" and "chest")
- 'full', "stand", "give": prone to synonymy
These nine words are substituted with three body parts ('foot', 'horn', 'head'), two universal food items ('meat', 'egg'), two semantically better-defined verbs ('to kill', 'to hear') as well as 'black', 'night'.
Yakhontov list
A brief 35-word list developed by Sergei Yakhontov that was used by the Russian Nostratics school as a preliminary approximation of the stablest basic vocabulary, prior to the development of the Swadesh-50 list.
Comparison
Abbreviations:
- LJ: the Leipzig-Jakarta list
- Sw50, 100, 200: various versions of the Swadesh list
- Y: the Yakhontov list
| Lexeme | Semantic area | LJ | Sw50 | Sw100 | Sw200 | Y |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| we | pronoun | √ | ||||
| two | numeral | √ | ||||
| I | pronoun | √ | ||||
| eye | body part | √ | ||||
| thou | pronoun | √ | ||||
| who | pronoun | √ | ||||
| fire | nature | √ | ||||
| tongue | body part | √ | ||||
| stone | nature | √ | ||||
| name | √ | |||||
| hand | body part | √ | ||||
| what | pronoun | √ | ||||
| die | verb | √ | ||||
| heart | body part | √ | ||||
| drink | verb: action |
√ | ||||
| dog | animal | √ | ||||
| louse | animal | √ | ||||
| moon | celestial | √ | ||||
| fingernail | body part | √ | ||||
| blood | body part / substance |
√ | ||||
| one | numeral | √ | ||||
| tooth | body part | √ | ||||
| new | adjective | √ | ||||
| dry | adjective | √ | ||||
| eat | verb: action |
√ | ||||
| tail | body part | √ | ||||
| head hair | body part / substance |
√ | ||||
| water | substance | √ | ||||
| nose | body part | √ | ||||
| not | √ | |||||
| mouth | body part | √ | ||||
| ear | body part | √ | ||||
| bird | animal | √ | ||||
| bone | body part / substance |
√ | ||||
| sun | celestial | √ | ||||
| smoke | substance | √ | ||||
| tree | √ | |||||
| ashes | substance | √ | ||||
| rain | √ | |||||
| star | celestial | √ | ||||
| leaf | √ | |||||
| kill | verb: action |
√ | ||||
| foot | body part | √ | ||||
| horn | body part | √ | ||||
| hear | verb: perception |
√ | ||||
| meat (food) | substance | √ | ||||
| egg | √ | |||||
| black | adjective | √ | ||||
| head | body part | √ | ||||
| night | √ |
