Shedding light on linguistic diversity and its evolution

Lexibank contains standardized lexical data on more than 2000 languages and will facilitate new insights into the evolution of linguistic diversity. © 123RF | bee32 - Linguists and computer scientists collaborate to publish a large global Open Access lexical database Scholars from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and the University of Auckland in New Zealand have created a new global repository of linguistic data. The project is designed to facilitate new insights into the evolution of words and sounds of the languages spoken across the world today. The Lexibank database contains standardized lexical data for more than 2000 languages. It is the most extensive publicly available collection compiled so far. Many languages in the world use words like 'mama' or 'papa' for 'mother' and 'father'. Languages with 'mama' are colored in red, and languages with 'papa' are colored in blue.