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The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials.[1] It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-ROM in 2005, and was released as the second edition on the Internet in April 2008. It is maintained by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and by the Max Planck Digital Library. The editors are Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil and Bernard Comrie.[1]

The atlas provides information on the location, linguistic affiliation and basic typological features of a great number of the world's languages. It interacts with Google Maps. The information of the atlas is published under a Creative Commons license.

History

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Releases

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Use

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Reception

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[2]

[3]

[4] 


"CD‐ROM is 110MB and operating systems supported are Windows 98, 2000 and XP"[5]

Reception

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[6][7][8]

Reviews of the 2005 Oxford volume and CD appeared in both linguistics and library science periodicals. William Bright's review in the International Journal of American Linguistics included a spot check of languages he was familiar with such as Karuk, Ivilyuat, and Nahuatl, and found errors in eight chapters. He concludes his review advising users to "double-check the data".[6] Wolfgang Schulze [ru; de]'s review in Studies in Language included a check of WALS's information of the languages of the Caucasus and estimated a performance rate of 80% for that group of languages but overall called it "extremely useful".[9]

The review in Reference and User Services Quarterly by University of Texas at San Antonio linguistics bibliographer Charles Thurston called WALS "indispensable for academic libraries".[10] The College & Research Libraries News review by American Libraries senior editor George M. Eberbart called it "essential for linguists and grammarians, but also of interest to anthropologists and geographers".[11] The review in Library Journal "recommended [it] for all academic libraries" and said it "is sure to become the definitive atlas on the subject."[12]

Additional linguists have discussed WALS after it moved online. Alexandra Aikhenvald and R.M.W. Dixon, in their introduction to The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology, called WALS an "ambitious, and yet disappointing, attempt", criticizing it for misquoting and misinterpreting its sources.[13] Dixon in a 2012 book has said that "it would be better for the field if it had not been produced" and "an unfortunate document", particularly because others have uncritically accepted it to be accurate and reliable.[7] A 2015 paper in Language by Henry Davis, Carrie Gillon, and Lisa Matthewson looked at WALS's information on Gitksan and Nisg̱a’a—which they describe as "sociopolitically distinct, but mutually intelligible", and found WALS's data differened for half of the features which were recorded for both of them despite them being "for all intents and purposes the same language". Davis and colleagues this "raises grave concerns about the reliability of grammar-mining over the thousands of languages featured in WALS." They have suggested WALS move to a crowd-sourcing model like Wikipedia in order to to correct errors as well as increased consultation with area specialists and clarification from grammars' authors.[14]

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[17]

Velupillai

References

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  1. ^ a b "WALS Online -".
  2. ^ Haspelmath, Martin; Dryer, Matthew S.; Gil, David; Comrie, Bernard, eds. (2005). The World Atlas of Language Structures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  3. ^ Cysouw, Michael (2008). "Using the World Atlas of Language Structures". STUF – Language Typology and Universals. 61 (3): 181–185. doi:10.1524/stuf.2008.0018.
  4. ^ Haspelmath, Martin (2009). "The typological database of the World Atlas of Language Structures". In Everaert, Martin; Musgrave, Simon; Dimitriadis, Alexis (eds.). The Use of Databases in Cross-Linguistic Studies. Empirical Approaches to Language Typology. Vol. 41. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 283–300. doi:10.1515/9783110198744.283.
  5. ^ Wichmann, Søren (2008). "The Emerging Field of Language Dynamics". Language and Linguistics Compass. 2 (3): 442–455. doi:10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00062.x.
  6. ^ a b Bright, William (2007). "The World Atlas of Language Structures by Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil, Bernard Comrie". Reviews. International Journal of American Linguistics. 73 (2): 241–244. doi:10.1086/519060. JSTOR 10.1086/519060.
  7. ^ a b Dixon, R. M. W. (2012). "Appendix 1 Source materials". Basis Linguistic Theory 3: Further Grammatical Topics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 461–462.
  8. ^ Plank, Frans (2009). "WALS values evaluated". Linguistic Typology. 13 (1): 41–75. doi:10.1515/LITY.2009.003.
  9. ^ Schulze, Wolfgang (2007). "Haspelmath, Martin & Matthew S. Dryer & Davil Gil & Bernard Comrie. 2005. The World Atlas of Language Structures". Review Article. Studies in Language. 31 (2): 445–463. doi:10.1075/sl.31.2.08sch.
  10. ^ Thurston, Charles (2006). "The World Atlas of Language Structures". Reference Books. 45 (4): 348–349. JSTOR 20864585. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ^ Eberbart, George M. (2006). "The World Atlas of Language Structures". New Publications. College & Research Libraries News. 67 (1): 37–38. doi:10.5860/crln.67.1.7560.
  12. ^ {{cite journal |last1=Chylinski |first1=Manya |title=The World Atlas of Language Structures |journal=Library Journal |date=2006 |volume=131 |issue=1 |page=162 |department=Reference |id=ProQuest 196868339
  13. ^ Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.; Dixon, R. M. W. (2017). "Introduction: Linguistic Typology – Setting the Scene". In Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.; Dixon, R. M. W. (eds.). The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology. Cambridge University Press. p. 27. doi:10.1017/9781316135716.001.
  14. ^ Davis, Henry; Gillon, Carrie; Matthewson, Lisa (2015). "Diversity driven but cognitively constrained: Boas meets Chomsky (Response to commentators)". Language. 91 (3): e127–e143. doi:10.1353/lan.2015.0039.
  15. ^ Hughes, H.G.A. (2006). "The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS)". Reference Reviews. 20 (7): 35. doi:10.1108/09504120610691664.
  16. ^ Donohue, Mark (2006). "Review: Typology: Haspelmath, Dryer, Gil & Comrie (2005)". LINGUIST List. 17 (1055).
  17. ^ Stolova, Natalya I. (October 2006). "Book review: The World Atlas of Language Structures". International Cognitive Linguistics Association. Archived from the original on March 4, 2012.
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