Monday, January 13, 2025

Protosemitic Root Derivations

The dataset provided here culminated in a directed network graph (gexf), and is the result of a guided research seminar on Semitic Philology by Adam Anderson on behalf of Jason Moser, who at the time was a Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley in the spring of 2019. The primary focus of the resulting network graph was to show potential pathways for comparative linguistics within the Semitic languages, a branch of the Afro-asiatic language family, based on commonly shared roots and their etymologies. 

When we concluded this study in 2019, the results were by no means finalized or conclusive, which means that many of the proposed root derivations in the graph are only a working hypothesis, and that there is a higher likelihood for inaccuracies that need to be corrected and supervised by specialists in each of these languages. We move ahead with a novel dataset publication, in order to put the results of this work in Wikidata lexemes, which in turn will allow for the scholarly curation and emendation to take place with attributions.

Our use of the term Protosemitic is more in line with Common-Semitic, thereby expressing a working hypothesis for the original Protosemitic roots and lemmas and the most likely related roots in different Semitic languages. Whether a root is inherited from Semitic, borrowed from another language, a Wanderwort or loanword, we don't claim to know. That said, we are fairly certain that the majority of the data shared in this version are based on true roots, which can be substantiated in the list sources. While there is a longstanding series of dictionaries for Akkadian verbal roots (e.g. AHw, CDA, CAD, etc.), the nominal roots have yet to receive the same attention. We therefore consulted a list of sources and datasets, both published and unpublished, including John Huehnergard’s Semitic Philology 140 syllabus from 2008, which we include below. The next version of this dataset will include Q-item ids and references for the etymology claims in Wikidata.

In preparation for the publication of this dataset in Wikidata, we worked closely with Timo Homburg, who helped formulate the claims and RDF tripple statements and uploaded the dataset as well. We would like to thank Timo for extending his time and skillsets to help make this data more accessible.

Datasets:

Network graph file: protosemitic_3996.gexf

Semitic Root Derivations: SemiticRootDerivations.csv


 

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