for those who want to view the spreadsheet without excel, there are at least 2 easy ways to do so. if you have a google account, download the file and then upload it to google documents (docs.google.com). if that doesn't suit you, get a free program that opens .xls files (e.g. www.openoffice.org)
Posted by michael at August 27, 2007 01:30 PMHe should talk to Bob Blust at the University of Hawai‘i. Bob is a historical linguist specializing in Austronesian.
Posted by James Crippen at August 27, 2007 01:42 PMBlust and his colleagues have created a great online tool, the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database. Not just number terms, of course -- you can see "one" in 578 languages, but you can also see "intestines" in 461 languages.
Posted by Ben Zimmer at August 27, 2007 03:25 PM"Intestines" is basic vocabulary?
Posted by Ran at August 27, 2007 05:05 PM"Intestines" is basic vocabulary?
"Gut(s)" might be. Or not -- compare German Darm.
Posted by David Marjanović at August 27, 2007 05:12 PMSounds like Richard could use an automated cognate searching program.
One is under development at Sydney Uni by a friend of mine who is comparing wordlists of thousands of entries from different languages. It's being designed especially for far-Northern Australian languages, but if it works, and things are looking good, then there's no reason not to extend it for any given use.
Although, it still requires the 'human' to do things like normalise orthography, write phonological rules, like lenition and vowel change, and sift through the perhaps hundreds of 'possible matches'. But it beats the hell out of eyeballing a spreadsheet.
Posted by Jangari at August 27, 2007 07:23 PMI get file not found.
Posted by Charles at August 28, 2007 02:55 AM
I too am unable to locate the file.
Jangari, would your colleagues find my mate Jamie's IPA Zounds any use?
Posted by Stephen Judd at August 28, 2007 05:11 AMSorry, just realized that I erred in my description of the ABVD. There are only 493 languages in the database, but some items have more than one entry for a given language -- hence "one" has 578 entries.
Posted by Ben Zimmer at August 28, 2007 05:35 AMI am a Bahá'í and find that any subject undertaken is made more relevant and more eloguent when Bahá'u'lláh is a participant.
Posted by Mark Townsend at August 29, 2007 09:39 PMThanks to LanguageHat for the very kind boost to my project, and my sincere apologies for getting the worksheet URL wrong.
It should have been:
http://coconutstudio.com/NumbersnetAug07.xls
Very sorry
Posted by Richard Parker at September 1, 2007 08:17 AM