Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Animadversions
Languages: Comparative Database Summary Page
(Text as at 01/07/2024 21:44:38)
Introduction
- After quite a bit of work1, I managed to find a way of creating a database so that:-
- I can quickly review what I’ve learnt of the various languages I’ve been studying,
- I can compare the vocabularies and phraseology of related languages, which is both interesting in its own right, and will help sort out confusion.
- I can look up various words to see how theoretically unrelated languages borrow from one another.
- I’ve created numerous pages in order to make the data more manageable.
- Firstly, there are four2 jumping-off points for the Vocabulary and Dialogues in Lesson order. These tables then link to further pages for the individual languages. So:-
- Languages: Vocabulary (Latin Scripts)3: Lesson Order
- Languages: Vocabulary (Non-Latin Scripts)4: Lesson Order
- Languages: Dialogue (Latin Scripts)5: Lesson Order
- Languages: Dialogue (Non-Latin Scripts)6: Lesson Order
- Secondly, there are five sets of pages comparing vocabulary across languages, grouped by language family. I also made an attempt to categorise the vocabulary. See the table below:-
- My first attempt at the above was to have all languages on the same page. This turned out to be very unwieldy, especially on a smartphone! For what they are worth, see:-
- Languages: Vocabulary CrossTab47: Lesson Order
- Languages: Vocabulary CrossTab48: Category Order
- Languages: Vocabulary Phrase CrossTab49: Lesson Order
- Languages: Vocabulary Phrase CrossTab50: Category Order
- Languages: Dialogue CrossTab51: Lesson Order
- I have to bear in mind that all this is meant simply to make time spent walking the dog more intellectually interesting, so many avenues that cannot be taken while dog walking cannot be followed up without encroaching on time needed for my other projects.
- For instance, there’s lots of vocabulary in the Examples and the Dialogues that’s not otherwise introduced, so won’t appear on the Vocabulary pages. I don’t expect to find the time to port it over.
- I’ve started to document the procedures and processes required to produce these pages here52.
In-Page Footnotes:
Footnote 1:
- The data is scraped from the Ling website.
- So far, I’ve written the code to extract from the Ling Review sections both Vocabulary and Dialogues.
- Most of the languages don’t have grammar sections on Ling and, when they do, they are of non-standard formats which would be difficult to extract, so I’ve ignored them for these purposes.
- Great thanks to Ling for the data (which has been borrowed without permission). I hope they will treat this as an advertisement for their excellent Site and App, both of which provide many features not reproduced here: in particular the progress tests and the pronunciation, which are essential for actually getting a proper feel for the language. Also, providing all 50 lessons for a language in one big splodge (as this site now does) is no help for actually learning anything without first having gone through the gradualist programme that Ling provides.
Footnote 2:
- The tables are split between Latin and non-Latin scripts. This was originally because the four pages contained the actual lessons for all languages in one big splodge, and the formats differed if there were transliterations.
- The split is no longer necessary, and I may fix it sometime.
Table of the Previous 5 Versions of this Note:
| Note last updated |
Reading List for this Topic |
Parent Topic |
| 01/07/2024 21:44:38 |
None available |
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Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note
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Summary of Notes Citing This Note
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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note
| Author |
Title |
Medium |
Extra Links |
Read? |
| Todman (Theo) |
Brief Thoughts on Language & Languages |
Paper  |
2, 3, 4 |
Yes |
Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2025