Wilhelm Vocabulary
- Wilhelm Vocabulary
Data Format
The data that serves wilhelmlang.com. They are written in YAML format, because
- it is machine-readable so that it can be consumed quickly in data pipelines
- it is human-readable and, thus, easy to read and modify
- it supports multi-lines value which is very handy for language data
Encoding Table in YAML
To encode the inflections which are common in most Indo-European languages, an application-specific YAML that looks like the following are employed throughout this repository:
- term: der Gegenstand
definition:
- object
- thing
declension:
- ["", singular, plural ]
- [nominative, Gegenstand, Gegenstände ]
- [genitive, "Gegenstandes, Gegenstands", Gegenstände ]
- [dative, Gegenstand, Gegenständen]
- [accusative, Gegenstand, Gegenstände ]
- A list under
declension
is a table row- All rows have the same number of columns
- Each element of the list corresponds to a table cell
The declension (inflection) table above is equivalent to
singular | plural | |
nominative | Gegenstand | Gegenstände |
genitive | Gegenstandes, Gegenstands | Gegenstände |
dative | Gegenstand | Gegenständen |
accusative | Gegenstand | Gegenstände |
Data Pipeline
How Data (Vocabulary) is Stored in a Graph Database
Why Graph Database
Graph data representation assumes universal connectivity among world entities. This applies pretty well to the realm of languages. Multilanguage learners have already seen that Indo-European languages are similar in many aspects. The similarities not only signify the historical facts about Philology but also surface a great opportunity for multilanguage learners to take advantages of them and study much more efficiently. What's missing is connecting the dots using Graph Databases that visually presents these vastly enlightening links between the related languages in a natural way.
Base Schema
vocabulary:
- term: string
definition: list
The meaning of a word is called the definition
. A term has a natural relationship to its definition(s). For example,
the German noun "Ecke" has at least 4 definitions:
The parenthesized value at the beginning of each
definition
item played an un-ignorable role: it is the label of the relationship betweenterm
anddefinition
in graph database loaded by Wilhelm SDK. For example, both German words
- term: denn definition: - (adv.) then, thus - (conj.) because
and
- term: nämlich definition: - (adj.) same - (adv.) namely - (adv.) because
can mean "because" acting as different types. This is visualized as follows:
Visualzing synonyms this way presents a big advantage to human brain who is exceedingly good at memorizing patterns
Docker
A Docker image has been made to allow us to explore the vocabulary in Neo4J browser backed by a Neo4J database in container. To get the image and run the container, simply do:
docker run \
--publish=7474:7474 \
--publish=7687:7687 \
--env=NEO4J_AUTH=none \
--env=NEO4J_ACCEPT_LICENSE_AGREEMENT=yes \
-e NEO4JLABS_PLUGINS=\[\"apoc\"\] \
jack20191124/wilhelm-vocabulary
The image is based on Neo4J Enterprise 5.23.0.
- When container starts, access neo4j through browser at http://localhost:7474
- Both bolt:// and neo4j:// protocols are fine.
- Choose No authentication for Authentication type
- Then hit Connect as shown below
We have offered some queries that can be used to quickly explore our language data in the next section
Interesting Queries
Search for all Synonyms:
MATCH (term:Term)-[r]-(synonym:Term) WHERE r.name = "synonym" RETURN term, r, synonym
Finding all gerunds:
MATCH (source)-[link:RELATED]->(target) WHERE link.name = "gerund of" RETURN source, link, target;
Expanding a word "nämlich" (reveals its relationship to other languages):
MATCH (term:Term{name:'nämlich'}) CALL apoc.path.expand(term, "RELATED|DEFINITION", null, 1, -1) YIELD path RETURN path, length(path) AS hops ORDER BY hops;
In German, "rice" and "travel" are related:
MATCH (term:Term{name:'die Reise'}) CALL apoc.path.expand(term, "RELATED|DEFINITION", null, 1, -1) YIELD path RETURN path, length(path) AS hops ORDER BY hops;
Languages
German
Noun Declension
Declension is the inflection for nouns and adjectives.
The declension tables for all nouns are sourced from Wiktionary
Declension Template
term
with a definite article of der signifies a masculine noun which has a declension table template of the
following form:
declension:
- ["", singular, plural]
- ["", noun, noun ]
- [nominative, ████████, ██████]
- [genitive, ████████, ██████]
- [dative, ████████, ██████]
- [accusative, ████████, ██████]
For example:
- term: das Getränk
definition: the drink
declension:
- ["", singular, plural ]
- [nominative, Getränk, Getränke ]
- [genitive, Getränkes, Getränks, Getränke ]
- [dative, Getränk, Getränken]
- [accusative, Getränk, Getränke ]
Adjectival nouns, however, do NOT follow the template above.
Ancient Greek
Unless otherwise mentioned, we are always talking about Attic Greek.
The vocabulary and declensions come from the following sources
Diacritic Mark Convention
We employ the following 3 diacritic signs only in vocabulary:
- the acute (ά)
- the circumflex (ᾶ), and
- the grave (ὰ)
In fact, it is called the medium diacritics and the same convention used in Loeb Classical Library prints from Harvard. Notice that, however, the commonly sourced Wiktionary uses full diacritics, including the breve diacritic mark; we don't do that.
Pronoun
The source of pronouns and their declensions come from the following sources
- Greek Core Vocabulary of Dickinson College
- Ancient Greek for Everyone, Pronouns: Part I
- Ancient Greek for Everyone, Pronouns: Part II
- Ancient Greek for Everyone, Pronouns: Part III
- Ancient Greek for Everyone, Pronouns: Part IV
- Wiktionary
More grammar about pronouns can be found in these great articles from Ancient Greek for Everyone
The declension table of a pronoun follows:
declension:
- ["", singular, plural]
- [nominative, ████████, ██████]
- [genitive, ████████, ██████]
- [dative, ████████, ██████]
- [accusative, ████████, ██████]
- [vocative, N/A, N/A ]
Noun Declension
The vocabulary entry for each noun consists of its nominative and genitive forms, an article which indicates the noun's gender, and the English meaning. For example.
- term: τέχνη τέχνης, ἡ
definition:
- art,
- skill,
- craft
declension class: 1st
the vocabulary entry above consists of the following 5 items:
τέχνη: nominative singular
τέχνης: genitive singular
ἡ: nominative feminine singular of the article, which shows that the gender of the noun is feminine. Gender will be indicated by the appropriate form of the definite article "the":
- ὁ for the masculine nouns
- ἡ for the feminine nouns
- τό for the neutor nouns
a list of English meanings of the word
the noun employs the first declension. The 3 classes of declensions are
- first declension (
1st
) - second declension (
2nd
) - third declension (
3rd
)
- first declension (
The declension of the entry is not shown because to decline any noun, we can take the genitive singular, remove the genitive singular ending to get the stem, and then add the proper set of endings to the stem based on its declension class[^2].
[^2]: Greek: An Intensive Course, 2nd Revised Edition, Hansen & Quinn, p.20
For example, to decline τέχνη τέχνης, ἡ, art, take the genitive singular τέχνης, remove the genitive singular ending -ης, and add the appropriate endings to the stem which gives following paradigm:
Case | Singular | Plural |
---|---|---|
nominative | τέχνη | τέχναι |
genitive | τέχνης | τεχνῶν |
dative | τέχνῃ | τέχναις |
accusative | τέχνην | τέχνᾱς |
vocative | τέχνη | τέχναι |
Adjective Declension
Declension template:
declension:
- ["", singular, singular, singular, dual, dual, dual plural, plural, plural]
- ["", masculine, feminine, neuter, masculine, feminine, neuter, masculine, feminine, neuter]
- [nominative, █████████, ████████, ████████, █████████, ████████, ██████, █████████, ████████, ██████]
- [genitive, █████████, ████████, ████████, █████████, ████████, ██████, █████████, ████████, ██████]
- [dative, █████████, ████████, ████████, █████████, ████████, ██████, █████████, ████████, ██████]
- [accusative, █████████, ████████, ████████, █████████, ████████, ██████, █████████, ████████, ██████]
- [vocative, █████████, ████████, ████████, █████████, ████████, ██████, █████████, ████████, ██████]
Verb Conjugation
The Greek verb has 6 principal parts. All 6 must be learned whenever a new verb is encountered:
- (first person singular) present indicative active
- (first person singular) future indicative active
- (first person singular) aorist indicative active
- (first person singular) perfect indicative active
- (first person singular) perfect indicative passive
- (first person singular) aorist indicative passive
The minimum number of forms which one must know in order to generate all possible forms of a verb are called the principal parts of that verb.
From the 6 forms above, various verb forms (i.e. stems & endings) can be derived by rules[^4]
[^4]: Greek: An Intensive Course, 2nd Revised Edition, Hansen & Quinn, p.44
In practice, however, obtaining precise and complete principal parts for some verbs has been proven to be impossible. While the best efforts have been made for reconstructing the complete principal parts, we also put a link to the Wiktionary of each verb for wilhelm-python-sdk, which will dynamically load the complete conjugation tables into graph database.
What's also being loaded are the reconstructed principal parts with a list of references that validate the reconstruction.
In conclusion, the entry of a verb, thus, has the form of:
- term: string
definition: list
conjugation:
wiktionary: string
principal parts:
- ["", Attic, (Possibly other dialects)]
- [(first person singular) present indicative active, █████, ... ]
- [(first person singular) future indicative active, █████, ... ]
- [(first person singular) aorist indicative active, █████, ... ]
- [(first person singular) perfect indicative active, █████, ... ]
- [(first person singular) perfect indicative passive, █████, ... ]
- [(first person singular) aorist indicative passive, █████, ... ]
references: list
For example:
- term: λέγω
definition:
- to say, speak
- to pick up
conjugation:
wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/λέγω#Verb_2
principal parts:
- ["", Attic , Koine ]
- [(first person singular) present indicative active, λέγω , λέγω ]
- [(first person singular) future indicative active, λέξω , ἐρῶ ]
- [(first person singular) aorist indicative active, ἔλεξα , εἶπον/εἶπα ]
- [(first person singular) perfect indicative active, (missing), εἴρηκα ]
- [(first person singular) perfect indicative passive, λέλεγμαι , λέλεγμαι ]
- [(first person singular) aorist indicative passive, ἐλέχθην , ἐρρέθην/ἐρρήθην]
references:
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/λέγω#Inflection
- http://atticgreek.org/downloads/allPPbytypes.pdf
- https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0264/ch25.xhtml
- https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/lego
- https://koine-greek.fandom.com/wiki/Λέγω
Latin
The vocabulary and declensions come from the following sources
- Latin Core Vocabulary of Dickinson College
- Wiktionary
vocabulary:
- term: string
definition: list
Classical Hebrew (Coming Soon)
The vocabulary is presented to help read and understand Biblical Hebrew. A complementary audio helps well with the pronunciation.
Korean
中国人学习韩语有先天优势,加之韩语本身也是一门相当简单的语言,所以这里将语法和词汇合并在一起;
每一项也只由 term
(韩)和 definition
(中)组成,
vocabulary:
- term: string
definition: list of strings
example:
- Korean: 제가 아무렴 그쪽 편에 서겠어요
Chinese: 我无论如何都会站在你这边
- Korean: ...
Chinese: ...
不用费太多功夫记牢简单的语法和词汇,剩下的就是拿韩语字幕剧不停练习听说读写既成。example
中的例句均来自韩国本土语料
韩语不属于汉藏语系,因其所属语系非常狭小,无法和其它语言产生足够关联,因此其数据暂时不被存入图数据库进行数据分析
License
The use and distribution terms for wilhelm-vocabulary are covered by the Apache License, Version 2.0.