The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

of structural (

phonological Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular variety (linguistics), speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the go ...

lexical Lexical may refer to: Linguistics * Lexical corpus or lexis, a complete set of all words in a language * Lexical item, a basic unit of lexicographical classification * Lexicon, the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge * Lex ...

) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

as a book with

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

in 2005, and was released as the second edition on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

in April 2008. It is maintained by the

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (german: Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Plan ...

and by the Max Planck Digital Library. The editors are

Martin Haspelmath Martin Haspelmath (; born 2 February 1963 in Hoya, Lower Saxony) is a German linguist working in the field of linguistic typology. He is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, where he worked from 199 ...

Matthew S. Dryer Matthew S. Dryer is a professor of linguistics at the State University of New York at Buffalo who has worked in typology, syntax, and language documentation. He is best known for his research on word order correlations, which has been widely cite ...

, David Gil and

Bernard Comrie Bernard Sterling Comrie, (; born 23 May 1947) is a British-born linguist. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology, linguistic universals and on Caucasian languages. Early life and education Comrie was born in Sunderland, England on 23 ...

. 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

OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed g ...

maps. The information of the atlas is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. It is part of the

Cross-Linguistic Linked Data The Cross-Linguistic Linked Data (CLLD) project coordinates over a dozen linguistics databases covering the languages of the world. It is hosted by the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary An ...

project hosted by the

Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History The Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (german: Max-Planck-Institut für Menschheitsgeschichte) performs basic research into archaeological science. The institute is one of 80+ research institutes of the Max Planck Society an ...

References

External links

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Download WALS Interactive Reference Tool
(obsolete - Windows XP or Mac PowerPC)
Conlang Atlas of Language Structures
Inspired by WALS, it includes some of the information contained in WALS and adds data about many

constructed language A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction ...

s. {{Cross-Linguistic Linked Data Linguistic atlases Creative Commons-licensed websites Creative Commons-licensed databases 2005 non-fiction books Internet properties established in 2008 Linguistics websites Works on linguistic typology Comparative linguistics Linguistics databases Cross-Linguistic Linked Data book-stub

See also

References

External links