If you use these data please cite
- the original source
Grierson, George Abraham (1928): Linguistic Survey of India. Comparative Vocabulary. Calcutta: Government of India Central Publication Branch.
- the derived dataset using the DOI of the particular released version you were using
This dataset is licensed under a CC-BY-4.0 license
Available online at https://lsi.clld.org
Conceptlists in Concepticon:
The first pass on the digitization was done by Patrick Lundberg and Taraka Rama, who typed the text from the tables in the scanned book pages into text files in a format easy to parse computationally. From this dataset, available in raw/LSI_txt, the data was then parsed and successively converted to CLDF, adding orthography profiles, providing links of language names to Glottolog, and linking the concept list to Concepticon (see Grierson-1928-168).
The following considerations went into creating the orthography profiles:
| Grapheme | IPA | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| V | v | typically common in Indian languages. Alternates between v and w |
| ^A | ɑ | a in America or u in hurry |
| a | ə | a in America or u in hurry |
| à͛ | à͛/a | Occurs twice in Pwo-Bassein. No explanation |
| ā | aː | a in America or u in hurry |
| ǟ | ǟ/æ | lengthened ɛ. ɛː |
| ǎ̀ | ǎ̀/a | occurs in Katurr Palaung. A short version of a. ă |
| ạ̄ | ạ̄/aː | Palaung. u in but (ʌː) |
| ạ̌ | ạ̌/a | Only occurs in Syrian Gypsy) |
| ḅ | ḅ/b | A peculiar labial according to Grierson, unvoiced may be) |
| ḇ | ḇ/b | Another variety of sound. Occurs in Tailang) |
| c̣ | c | No mention in the book. Based on context, treat it as ch ~ tɕ) |
| ḥ̣ | h | A sound equivalent to visarga in Sanskrit. Essentially h) |
| ī̃° | ī̃°/ĩ | actually a glottal check) |
| ī̇ | ɪː | Only occurs once in Mandarin) |
| ï̌ | ï̌/ɪ | Centralized vowel (may be) occurring once in Prakrit) |
| ị̄ | ị̄/ɪː | Occurs in Palaung. Supposed to be a modification of ī) |
| i̯ | i̯/j | Occurs only in Cham. no explanation given. Is it non-syllabic?) |
| ḷ’ | ɭ̥ | supposed to be a breathy voiced ɭ) |
| m̊° | m̥ | mˤ (Should be a glottal check according the book. ˤ) |
| m̌ | m̌/m | Occurs in Singhalese. No description given in Grierson) |
| n | n̪ | not clear if this should be a dental sound. Tamil has an alveolar stop. In general dental nasal stops are present in Indian languages) |
| ṅ̇ | ṅ̇/n | Typo in the data. Should be treated as velar nasal ŋ |
| r | r/ɾ | possibly a flap for Tamil/malayalam. Rest of languages, it could be r. No explanation in the book. |
| ṛ’ | ɽ̊ | weak aspiration |
| r̤ | r̤/r ɻ | retroflex approximant occurs in Malayalam and Tamil |
| ṟˡ | ṟˡ/r | trilled r |
| s̄ | s̄/s | Typo in case of Anal, Bhojpuri |
| š́ | š́/ʃ | skh in Ormuri |
| ṣ̌ | ṣ̌/ʂ | sch in Ormuri |
| s̱ | s̱/s | part of ṯs̱ |
| t̤ | t̤/t | tˤfor ط Arabic. |
| ū’ | ū’/uː | Only occurs in Sakai and Semang. SHould be treated as "uː h" |
| ǖ | ǖ/yː | long variant of ü (y) |
| v | v | ʋ typically common in Indian languages. Alternates between v and w |
| à | à/a | as in German Mann |
| è | è/e | no explanation in the book. Better go with e |
| é | é/e | no explanation in the book. Better go with e |
| ì | ì/i | no explanation in the book. Better go with i |
| í | í/i | no explanation in the book. Better go with i. Three instances |
| ï | ï/ɪ | a centralized vowel |
| ò | ò/o | Typo for ö in Yeinbå. |
| ó | ó/o | Occurs in Rong/Lepcha. Equivalent to o in "for" or "nor" |
| ô | ɔ | no sound in the original transcriptions. Occurs in the language name: Salôn |
| õ | õ | nasalized. No explanation but can assume... |
| ö̌ | ö̌/œ | (̈̌ü dipthong. A very short French eu followed by u. Found in Miao-Hmong |
| ù | ù/u | no explanation in the book. Better go with u |
| ú | ú/u | no explanation in the book. Better go with u |
| ü | y | y: is for German ubel |
| ė | ė/ə | No explanation. Only found once in Annamese (Vietnamese) |
| ě | ě/e | equivalent to ə. occurs in Katurr Palaung |
| ň | ň/n | no explanation in Grierson |
| ũ | ũ | probably nasalized vowel |
| ż | ż/z | no explanation in Grierson |
| ǎ | æ | parsing error. It is part of the ǎ̀ symbol |
| Ǐ | i | no explanation in Grierson |
| ǐ | ǐ/i | no explanation in Grierson |
| ǒ | ɒ | no explanation in Grierson |
| ǔ | ǔ/ʊ | short version of oo in soon, boon. ŏ |
| ǚ | ǚ/y̆ | extra short y |
| ȧ | ȧ/a | It should be å. It is not clearly printed in the original book |
| ȯ | o | Only occurs once in Shodochi for "ten". |
| ȳ | yː | not there in the book |
| ɯ | ɯ | Book shows this form |
| δ̤ | ðʰ | ðˤ version. Ẓāʾ in Modern Standard Arabic |
| δ̱ | d̪ | ˤ version of d̪ |
| ḣ | ḣ/h | Typo. should be ḥ |
| ḥ | ḥ/h | A sound equivalent to visarga in Sanskrit. Essentially h |
| ḳ | ḳ/k | Occurs only in Salon. No explanation in the book |
| ṁ | ṁ/m | as a nasal vowel. typically nasalizes previous vowel and occurs in Sanskrit and borrowings |
| ṃ | ṃ/ṁ | Typo. should be rendered as ṁ |
| ṙ | ṙ/r | typo. should be rendered as ṛ |
| ṟ | ṟ/r | a trilled r |
| ṡ | ṡ/s | better shown as ʃ |
| ṫ | ṫ̪ | Could be a parsing error. Can't locate it |
| ạ | ạ/a | Less rounded ö. Occurs in SHAN. A slightly long variant occurs in Siamese. ø̜ |
| ạ̄ | ạ̄/aː | ø̜ː in Siamese |
| ẹ | ẹ/ɚ | Gheko has this sound mainly. variant between i and e. So ɪ is a good candidate. Occurs in Avestan but no explanation. |
| ị | i | Occurs in Palaung. Supposed to be a modification of i |
| ụ | ụ/u | Less rounded ü. May be y̜. Occurs in Siamese and Shan |
| ꭓʷ | χʷ | xʷ labialized x |
| ꭓ́ | χ | kkh according to the book |
| ^ō̂ | ō̂/oː | One occurrence in Guzuri of Hazara |
LSI covers more than 350 language varieties from multiple language families.
See cldf/README.md for a description of the tables and columns and the entity-relationship diagram for how they relate.
- Varieties: 363 (linked to 323 different Glottocodes)
- Concepts: 168 (linked to 102 different Concepticon concept sets)
- Lexemes: 60,533
- Sources: 1
- Synonymy: 1.14
- Invalid lexemes: 0
- Tokens: 364,236
- Segments: 170 (0 BIPA errors, 0 CLTS sound class errors, 170 CLTS modified)
- Inventory size (avg): 42.32
- Languages missing glottocodes: 10/363 (2.75%%)
| Name | GitHub user | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Grierson, George Abraham | Author | |
| Taraka Rama | @phylostar | Editor |
| Patrick Lundberg | DataCurator | |
| Christoph Rzymski | @chrzyki | DataCurator |
| Robert Forkel | @xrotwang | Editor |
| Johann-Mattis List | @lingulist | Editor |
The following CLDF datasets are available in cldf:
- CLDF Wordlist at cldf/cldf-metadata.json