Short review of phonological databases

Linguistics
Author

Stefano Coretta

Published

June 30, 2014

List of available phonological databases (updated 2019-03-22):

1 UCLA Phonological Segment Inventory Database

  • number of records: 451 languages
  • type of sample: genetically balanced
  • interface: desktop and web
  • data: inventory, language family, comments, source
  • searchable: for language, number of sounds, frequency index, family and phonetic features
  • search display: list

2 Lyon-Albuquerque Phonological Systems Database

  • number of records: (in progress)
  • type of sample: not balanced
  • interface: web
  • data: consonant and vowel inventories, syllable structure, stress and tone systems, language location and classification
  • searchable: for language (name, iso, classification), sounds (table format), phonetic features, syllable
  • search display: segment table, boolean (sound, feature, area, family, syllable)

3 Phonetics Information Base and Lexicon

  • number of records: 1,010 languages
  • type of sample: not balanced
  • interface: web
  • data: inventory, segment class, language location
  • searchable: for language (name, iso), sounds (list format), source
  • search display: list

4 World Atlas of Language Structures

  • number of records: 2,679 languages
  • type of sample: balanced
  • interface: desktop and web
  • data: size of consonant inventory, size of vowel inventory, consonant-vowel ratio, voicing and gaps in plosive system, uvular consonant, glottalized consonants, velar nasal, reduplication
  • searchable: for language (name, iso, genus, family, macroarea; list format), characteristics (list format)
  • search display: list and map

5 South American Phonological Inventory Database

  • number of records: 359 languages
  • type of sample: not balanced, South America
  • interface: web
  • data: segment inventory, suprasegmentals, language (name, iso, family, country)
  • searchable: for language (name, iso, family, country; list format and map), sounds (table)
  • search display: table, list and map

6 BDPROTO Proto-language segment inventories

  • number of records: 137 languages
  • type of sample: genialogical diversity, convenience sample
  • interface: offline (csv, sql)
  • data: segment inventory, suprasegmentals, language (name, iso, family, homeland, time depth)
  • searchable: yes
  • search display: none

7 Database of Eurasian phonological inventories

  • number of records: 416 languages
  • type of sample:
  • interface: web and offline (json)
  • data: segment inventory, suprasegmentals, language (name, family, group)
  • searchable: segment inventory, language, location
  • search display: map, list, segments table

Citation

BibTeX citation:
@online{coretta2014,
  author = {Coretta, Stefano},
  title = {Short Review of Phonological Databases},
  date = {2014-06-30},
  url = {https://stefanocoretta.github.io/posts/2021-01-09-short-review/},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Coretta, Stefano. 2014. Short review of phonological databases. https://stefanocoretta.github.io/posts/2021-01-09-short-review/.