Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications.

September 4, 2014 by languagehat 2 Comments

This is wonderful:

CLICS is an online database of synchronic lexical associations (“colexifications”, see here for more information) in currently 221 language varieties of the world. Large databases offering lexical information on the world’s languages are already readily available for research in different online sources. However, the information on tendencies of meaning associations they enshrine is not easily extractable from these sources themselves. This is why CLICS was created. It is designed to serve as a data source for work in lexical typology, diachronic semantics, and research in cognitive science that focuses on natural language semantics from the viewpoint of cross-linguistic diversity. Furthermore, CLICS can be used as a helpful tool to assess the plausibility of semantic connections between possible cognates in the establishment of genetic relations between languages.

For an example, here‘s the semantic map of “give”; pause your mouse over words and links alike, and click when you feel like it, as I’ve been doing for too long — I have to work. Many thanks to Wm Annis for the heads-up!

Comments

John Cowan says

September 4, 2014 at 10:05 pm

OT advisory to the LH community: ccil.org is down, which means I not only can’t send or receive mail except through my Gmail backup account, but also that “Recently Commented-On Language Hat Posts” is down too. Apparently they are waiting for a replacement power supply for the creaky old box.
languagehat says

April 16, 2021 at 11:19 am

The original CLICS link works but has been superseded by this one.

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