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
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
definitionitem played an un-ignorable role: it is the label of the relationship betweentermanddefinitionin graph database loaded by Wilhelm SDK. For example, both German words- term: denn definition: - (adv.) then, thus - (conj.) becauseand
- term: nämlich definition: - (adj.) same - (adv.) namely - (adv.) becausecan 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
Inflections
Indo-European languages are mostly inflected. The way inflections are encoded are documented for each language separately:
Basic Graph Query
Search for a vocabulary with all its links:
MATCH (term:Term)-[r]-(x) WHERE term.name = "der Amerikaner" RETURN term, r, x;
Languages
German
Noun Declension
Declension is the inflection for nouns and adjectives. The declension table employees an application-specific YAML that looks like the following:
- term: der Kaufmann
definition: (male) trader
declension:
- ["", singular, singular, singular, plural, plural ]
- ["", indef., def., noun, def., noun ]
- [nominative, ein, der, Kaufmann, die, "Kaufmänner, Kaufleute" ]
- [genitive, eines, des, "Kaufmannes, Kaufmanns", der, "Kaufmänner, Kaufleute" ]
- [dative, einem, dem, Kaufmann, den, "Kaufmännern, Kaufleuten"]
- [accusative, einen, den, Kaufmann, die, "Kaufmänner, Kaufleute" ]
- A list under
declensionis a table row- All rows have the same number of columns
- Each element of the list corresponds to a table cell
The declension table above is equivalent to
| singular | plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| indef. | def. | noun | def. | noun | |
| nominative | ein | der | Kaufmann | die | Kaufmänner, Kaufleute |
| genitive | eines | des | Kaufmannes, Kaufmanns | der | Kaufmänner, Kaufleute |
| dative | einem | dem | Kaufmann | den | Kaufmännern, Kaufleuten |
| accusative | einen | den | Kaufmann | die | Kaufmänner, Kaufleute |
The declension tables for all nouns are sourced from Wiktionary
Declension Templates
Masculine
term with a definite article of der signifies a masculine noun which has a declension table template of the
following form:
declension:
- ["", singular, singular, singular, plural, plural]
- ["", indef., def., noun, def., noun ]
- [nominative, ein, der, ████████, die, ██████]
- [genitive, eines, des, ████████, der, ██████]
- [dative, einem, dem, ████████, den, ██████]
- [accusative, einen, den, ████████, die, ██████]
For example:
- term: der Gegenstand
definition:
- object
- thing
declension:
- ["", singular, singular, singular, plural, plural ]
- ["", indef., def., noun, def., noun ]
- [nominative, ein, der, Gegenstand, die, Gegenstände ]
- [genitive, eines, des, "Gegenstandes, Gegenstands", der, Gegenstände ]
- [dative, einem, dem, Gegenstand, den, Gegenständen]
- [accusative, einen, den, Gegenstand, die, Gegenstände ]
Adjectival nouns, however, do NOT follow the template above. Instead, it uses adjective declension table template
The definition of the adjectival nouns begins with "(Adjectival nouns)"`. For example:
- term: der Kranker definition: (Adjectival nouns) the sick person declension: strong declension (without article): - ["", singular, singular, singular, plural ] - ["", masculine, feminine, neuter, "" ] - [nominative, Kranker, N/A, N/A, Kranke ] - [genitive, Kranken, N/A, N/A, Kranker] - [dative, Krankem, N/A, N/A, Kranken] - [accusative, Kranken, N/A, N/A, Kranke ] weak declension (with definite article): - ["", singular, singular, singular, plural ] - ["", masculine, feminine, neuter, "" ] - [nominative, der Kranke, N/A, N/A, die Kranken] - [genitive, des Kranken, N/A, N/A, der Kranken] - [dative, dem Kranken, N/A, N/A, den Kranken] - [accusative, den Kranken, N/A, N/A, die Kranken] mixed declension (with indefinite article): - ["", singular, singular, singular, plural ] - ["", masculine, feminine, neuter, "" ] - [nominative, ein Kranker, N/A, N/A, (keine) Kranken] - [genitive, eines Kranken, N/A, N/A, (keiner) Kranken] - [dative, einem Kranken, N/A, N/A, (keinen) Kranken] - [accusative, einen Kranken, N/A, N/A, (keine) Kranken]Note that since "Kranker" is masculine, all feminine and neuter declensions are undefined and, thus, are marked with "N/A".
Feminine
term with a definite article of die signifies a feminine noun which has a declension table template of the
following form:
declension:
- ["", singular, singular, singular, plural, plural]
- ["", indef., def., noun, def., noun ]
- [nominative, eine, die, ████████, die, ██████]
- [genitive, einer, der, ████████, der, ██████]
- [dative, einer, der, ████████, den, ██████]
- [accusative, eine, die, ████████, die, ██████]
Neuter
term with a definite article of das signifies a neuter noun which has a declension table template of the
following form:
declension:
- ["", singular, singular, singular, plural, plural]
- ["", indef., def., noun, def., noun ]
- [nominative, ein, das, ████████, die, ██████]
- [genitive, eines, des, ████████, der, ██████]
- [dative, einem, dem, ████████, den, ██████]
- [accusative, ein, das, ████████, die, ██████]
(Attributive) Adjective Declension
- Predicate adjectives (e.g. kalt in mir ist kalt "I am cold") are undeclined
- An adjective can both be predicative (a brave boy) or attributive (The boy is brave). Only attributive adjectives are declined.
There are 3 types of declensions for German adjectives
Each type bears a separate declension table. To master German adjectives, we will need to memorize all of the three.
There is also adjective comparison which throws in potentially 6 more tables. But the rules for comparative and superlative forms are quite universal so we ignore the two and focus only on the positive form, which is the basic form of the adjective.
The template of the adjective is as follows:
declension:
strong declension (without article):
- ["", singular, singular, singular, plural]
- ["", masculine, feminine, neuter, "" ]
- [nominative, █████████, ████████, ████████, ██████]
- [genitive, █████████, ████████, ████████, ██████]
- [dative, █████████, ████████, ████████, ██████]
- [accusative, █████████, ████████, ████████, ██████]
weak declension (with definite article):
- ["", singular, singular, singular, plural]
- ["", masculine, feminine, neuter, "" ]
- [nominative, der █████, die ████, das ███, die ██]
- [genitive, des █████, der ████, des ███, der ██]
- [dative, dem █████, der ████, dem ███, den ██]
- [accusative, den █████, die ████, das ███, die ██]
mixed declension (with indefinite article):
- ["", singular, singular, singular, plural ]
- ["", masculine, feminine, neuter, "" ]
- [nominative, ein █████, eine ███, ein ███, (keine) █████]
- [genitive, eines ███, einer ██, eines █, (keiner) █████]
- [dative, einem ███, einer ██, einem █, (keinen) █████]
- [accusative, einen ███, eine ███, ein ███, (keine) █████]
Here is an example of the adjective declension for "unterschiedlich":
- term: unterschiedlich
definition: (adj.) different
declension:
strong declension (without article):
- ["", singular, singular, singular, plural ]
- ["", masculine, feminine, neuter, "" ]
- [nominative, unterschiedlicher, unterschiedliche, unterschiedliches, unterschiedliche ]
- [genitive, unterschiedlichen, unterschiedlicher, unterschiedlichen, unterschiedlicher]
- [dative, unterschiedlichem, unterschiedlicher, unterschiedlichem, unterschiedlichen]
- [accusative, unterschiedlichen, unterschiedliche, unterschiedliches, unterschiedliche ]
weak declension (with definite article):
- ["", singular, singular, singular, plural ]
- ["", masculine, feminine, neuter, "" ]
- [nominative, der unterschiedliche, die unterschiedliche, das unterschiedliche, die unterschiedlichen]
- [genitive, des unterschiedlichen, der unterschiedlichen, des unterschiedlichen, der unterschiedlichen]
- [dative, dem unterschiedlichen, der unterschiedlichen, dem unterschiedlichen, den unterschiedlichen]
- [accusative, den unterschiedlichen, die unterschiedliche, das unterschiedliche, die unterschiedlichen]
mixed declension (with indefinite article):
- ["", singular, singular, singular, plural ]
- ["", masculine, feminine, neuter, "" ]
- [nominative, ein unterschiedlicher, eine unterschiedliche, ein unterschiedliches, (keine) unterschiedlichen ]
- [genitive, eines unterschiedlichen, einer unterschiedlichen, eines unterschiedlichen, (keiner) unterschiedlichen]
- [dative, einem unterschiedlichen, einer unterschiedlichen, einem unterschiedlichen, (keinen) unterschiedlichen]
- [accusative, einen unterschiedlichen, eine unterschiedliche, ein unterschiedliches, (keine) unterschiedlichen ]
The declension tables for all adjectives are sourced from Wiktionary
German Conjugation
The conjugation is the inflection paradigm for a German verb. Those with conjugation field denotes a verb; its
definition also begins with an indefinite form, i.e. "to ..."
There are 3 persons, 2 numbers, and 4 moods (indicative, conditional, imperative and subjunctive) to consider in conjugation. There are 6 tenses in German: the present and past are conjugated, and there are four compound tenses. There are two categories of verbs in German: weak and strong^1. In addition, strong verbs are grouped into 7 "classes"
The conjugation table of German verb on Wiktionary is hard to interpret for German beginner. It does, however, presents a very good Philology reference. For example, it tells us which of the 7 "classes" a strong verb belongs to. We, therefore, leave the Wiktionary links to the conjugation table of that verb for data processing in the future, for example,
- term: aufwachsen
definition: to grow up
conjugation: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aufwachsen#Conjugation
and advise user to employ a much more practical method to learn daily conjugation as follows. We take "aufwachsen" as an example.
I'm not advertising for any organizations. I'm simply sharing good resources.
Netzverb Dictionary is the best German dictionary targeting the vocabulary inflections. Search for "aufwachsen" and we will see much more intuitive conjugation tables listed.
This pretty much serves our needs, but what makes Netzverb unpenetrable by other alternatives is that every verb comes with
A printable version that looks much better than the browser's Control+P export
- There is also a "Sentences with German verb aufwachsen" section with a link that offer a fruitful number of conjugated examples getting us familiar with the inflections of the verb
An on-the-fly generated flashcard sheet which allows us to make a better usage of our random free time
A YouTube video that offers audios of almost every conjugated form, which helps with pronunciations a lot
- It is, thus, strongly recommended to study the conjugation through Netzverb Dictionary separately
- Netzverb Dictionary, however, lacks a programmable API. Wiktionary has a good one instead. This is why we left the conjugation link to Wiktionary for now and it will definitely serve us well as I'm trying to make it happen
Ancient Greek
Wiktionary and Logos Bible Study Platform are the best sources as pronunciation guides. Due to the scarcity of the audio resources among AG lerners, a separate project has been initiated to expand the audio practice materials by AI
Ancient Greek is still an under-attesting language, what that means is no textbook is "complete". One will frequently see a certain grammar does not apply to or some inflections are missing for a word. Therefore, the best strategy to make inflection data of Ancient Greek is to crawl the entire inflection table of every word. This would be impractical manually but practical automatically using wilhelm-python-sdk. The sections below will make references to the certain parts of SDK.
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.
Greek YAML Schema
Greek Noun
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
the vocabulary entry above consists of the following 4 items:
- τέχνη: nominative singular
- τέχνης: genitive singular
- ἡ: nominative feminine singular of the article, which shows that the gender of the noun is feminine
- a list of English meanings of the word
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 |
Greek Verb
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
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.