Swadesh’s lexical inventory may be described as a foundational instrument in comparative and historical linguistics, designed to isolate the most stable stratum of a language’s vocabulary.
Conceived as a methodological aid for evaluating linguistic relatedness, the Swadesh list deliberately concentrates on items of basic, non‑specialized vocabulary—terms referring to universal human experiences, elementary actions, and fundamental aspects of the natural world.
The underlying premise is that such “core” vocabulary exhibits a markedly slower rate of replacement over long chronological spans and therefore preserves evidence of genealogical affiliation more reliably than culturally marked lexemes.
A central feature of Swadesh’s approach is the exclusion of vocabulary domains susceptible to borrowing. He distinguished between “cultural” vocabulary, which is frequently exchanged across linguistic boundaries due to contact, trade, or technological diffusion, and “intimate” vocabulary, which is embedded in everyday life and personal experience.
The latter category—encompassing kinship terms, body parts, basic verbs of motion, and elemental natural phenomena—was assumed to be comparatively resistant to lexical diffusion.
By restricting the list to this intimate sphere, Swadesh sought to minimize the confounding effects of borrowing and thereby enhance the diagnostic value of lexical comparison for establishing historical relationships among languages.
In its original formulation (Swadesh 1952), the list thus represents an attempt to codify a universal, cross‑linguistic baseline of lexical items that are both semantically fundamental and diachronically persistent, providing a controlled dataset for evaluating linguistic divergence and reconstructing prehistoric language contact and development.
How It Is Used?
- Finding Cognates: Linguists translate the 207 words into the different languages being studied. By comparing the translations, they look for cognates—words that share a common ancestral root (e.g., the English word “mother” and the German word “mutter”).
- Measuring Relatedness: By calculating the percentage of words that are cognates between two languages, researchers can determine how long ago the languages split from a single ancestral tongue.
- Preventing “Borrowing”: Swadesh deliberately chose core vocabulary—body parts, natural phenomena, simple verbs, and pronouns—because these words are highly intimate and thus extremely resistant to being “borrowed” from neighboring cultures over time.
Example of Usage
To use the list, researchers fill out the 207 words for each language. Below is a conceptual example of how three concepts from the Swadesh 207 list are compared:
| Swadesh Meaning | Arabic | Hebrew | Turkish |
| I | ana | ani | ben |
| rain | maṭar | matar | yağmur |
| four | arbaʿ | arba | dört |
Analysis: Comparing Arabic and Hebrew, we see “maṭar/مطر” (Arabic) and “matar/מָטָר” (Hebrew) share a deep, historical root.
Calculation: By finding out how many of the 207 words match this way between Arabic and Hebrew, linguists can quantify their relationship and evolutionary history.
Developed by linguist Morris Swadesh, (Swadesh 207 list) is composed of fundamental concepts presumed to exist in all human cultures.
| 1- I | 2- you (singular) | 3- they (singular) |
| 4- we | 5- you (plural) | 6- they (plural) |
| 7- this | 8- that | 9- here |
| 10- there | 11- who | 12- what |
| 13- where | 14- when | 15- how |
| 16- not | 17- all | 18- many |
| 19- some | 20- few | 21- other |
| 22- one | 23- two | 24- three |
| 25- four | 26- five | 27- big |
| 28- long | 29- wide | 30- thick |
| 31- heavy | 32- small | 33- short |
| 34- narrow | 35- thin | 36- woman |
| 37- man (adult male) | 38- man (human being) | 39- child |
| 40- wife | 41- husband | 42- mother |
| 43- father | 44- animal | 45- fish |
| 46- bird | 47- dog | 48- louse |
| 49- snake | 50- worm | 51- tree |
| 52- forest | 53- stick | 54- fruit |
| 55- seed | 56- leaf | 57- root |
| 58- bark (of a tree) | 59- flower | 60- grass |
| 61- rope | 62- skin | 63- meat |
| 64- blood | 65- bone | 66- fat (noun) |
| 67- egg | 68- horn | 69- tail |
| 70- feather | 71- hair | 72- head |
| 73- ear | 74- eye | 75- nose |
| 76- mouth | 77- tooth | 78- tongue (organ) |
| 79- fingernail | 80- foot | 81- leg |
| 82- knee | 83- hand | 84- wing |
| 85- belly | 86- guts | 87- neck |
| 88- back | 89- breast | 90- heart |
| 91- liver | 92- to drink | 93- to eat |
| 94- to bite | 95- to suck | 96- to spit |
| 97- to vomit | 98- to blow | 99- to breathe |
| 100- to laugh | 101- to see | 102- to hear |
| 103- to know | 104- to drink | 105- to smell |
| 106- to fear | 107- to sleep | 108- to live |
| 109- to die | 110- to kill | 111- to fight |
| 112- to hunt | 113- to hit | 114- to cut |
| 115- to split | 116- to stab | 117- to scratch |
| 118- to dig | 119- to swim | 120- to fly |
| 121- to walk | 122- to come | 123- to lie (as in a bed) |
| 124- to sit | 125- to stand | 126- to turn (intransitive) |
| 127- to fall | 128- to give | 129- to hold |
| 130- to squeeze | 131- to rub | 132- to wash |
| 133- to wipe | 134- to pull | 135- to push |
| 136- to throw | 137- to tie | 138- to sew |
| 139- to count | 140- to say | 141- to sing |
| 142- to play | 143- to float | 144- to flow |
| 145- to freeze | 146- to swell | 147- sun |
| 148- moon | 149- star | 150- water |
| 151- rain | 152- river | 153- lake |
| 154- sea | 155- salt | 156- stone |
| 157- sand | 158- dust | 159- earth |
| 160- cloud | 161- fog | 162- sky |
| 163- wind | 164- snow | 165- ice |
| 166- smoke | 167- fire | 168- ash |
| 169- to burn | 170- road | 171- mountain |
| 172- red | 173- green | 174- yellow |
| 175- white | 176- black | 177- night |
| 178- day | 179- year | 180- warm |
| 181- cold | 182- full | 183- new |
| 184- old | 185- good | 186- bad |
| 187- rotten | 188- dirty | 189- straight |
| 190- round | 191- sharp (as a knife) | 192- dull (as a knife) |
| 193- smooth | 194- wet | 195- dry |
| 196- correct | 197- near | 198- far |
| 199- right | 200- left | 201- at |
| 202- in | 203- with | 204- and |
| 205- if | 206- because | 207- name |
Main drawbacks
Limitations of using the Swadesh list include:
– Semantic Shifting: Words change meaning over time, and different languages may categorize a meaning with a broader or narrower scope, artificially inflating or deflating cognate counts.
– Camouflaged borrowing: Distinguishing between inherited ancestral words and vocabulary borrowed from neighboring languages can be difficult, leading to false relationships.
– Forced translations: Many English concepts (e.g., specific kinship terms or environmental words like “snow” or “fog”) lack direct, universal equivalents in other cultures, leading to forced translations.
Example:
| Swadesh | Proto-Semitic | Akkadian | Latin |
| Water | māˀū | māwū | meio |
The primary Latin word for “water” is aqua. As Latin evolved, aqua transformed phonetically into the everyday word for water across Southern and Western Europe. Examples include: Spanish/Portuguese: agua and Italian: acqua.
Latin has several synonyms for “aqua” such as: “meio“, which almost certainly a loanword of Semitic origin. However, the extant etymological literature generally identifies Latin “meio“, as originating within the Indo‑European linguistic tradition.