Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word Appendix:Novial Swadesh list. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word Appendix:Novial Swadesh list, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say Appendix:Novial Swadesh list in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word Appendix:Novial Swadesh list you have here. The definition of the word Appendix:Novial Swadesh list will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofAppendix:Novial Swadesh list, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
For further information, including the full final version of the list, read the Wikipedia article: Swadesh list.
American linguist Morris Swadesh believed that languages changed at measurable rates and that these could be determined even for languages without written precursors. Using vocabulary lists, he sought to understand not only change over time but also the relationships of extant languages. To be able to compare languages from different cultures, he based his lists on meanings he presumed would be available in as many cultures as possible. He then used the fraction of agreeing cognates between any two related languages to compute their divergence time by some (still debated) algorithms. Starting in 1950 with 165 meanings, his list grew to 215 in 1952, which was so expansive that many languages lacked native vocabulary for some terms. Subsequently, it was reduced to 207, and reduced much further to 100 meanings in 1955. A reformulated list was published posthumously in 1971.