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 modify
it supports multi-lines value which is very handy for data of natural languages

How Data (Vocabulary) is Stored in a Graph Database

Data Model

Graph data representation assumes universal connectivity among world entities. This applies pretty well to the realm of languages. Multilanguate learners have already seen that Indo-European languages are similar in many different ways. What's missing is connecting the dots using Graph Databases.

Language represented as a graph reveals lots of interesting information. To accomplish such representation, each word (term) is presented in the following way

Definition

The meaning of a word is called the definition_

German

YAML Schema

vocabulary:
  - term: string
    definition: list
    declension/conjugation: application-specific table

The conjugation is the inflection paradigm for a German verb and declension the inflection for nouns and adjectives. Only one of the two is present for a term.
The type of the word can be inferred using the following rule
- term with a definite article of der/die/das signifies a noun. For instance
```
  - term: die Wissenschaft
    definition: the Science
```
- Those with conjugation field denotes a verb; its definition also begins with an indefinite form, i.e. "to ..."
- The rests are explicitly stated in the definition field. For example,
```
  - term: ob
    definition:
      - (conj.) if
      - (conj.) whether
```
  means "ob" is a conjunction in this case and
```
  - term: denn
    definition:
      - (adv.) then, thus
      - (conj.) because
```
  tells that "denn" can be adverb or conjunction

The parenthesized value at the beginning of each definition item played an un-ignorable role: it is the label of the relationship between term and definition 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

German Noun Declension

The declension table employees an application-specific YAML that looks like the following:

  - term: ein
    definition: (article) a, an
    declension:
      - ["",         masculine, feminine, neuter, plural]
      - [nominative, ein,       eine,     ein,    N/A   ]
      - [genitive,   eines,     einer,    eines,  N/A   ]
      - [dative,     einem,     einer,    einem,  N/A   ]
      - [accusative, einen,     eine,     ein,    N/A   ]

The declension table above is equivalent to

	masculine	feminine	neuter	plural
nominative	ein	eine	ein	N/A
genitive	eines	einer	eines	N/A
dative	einem	einer	einem	N/A
accusative	einen	eine	ein	N/A

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 tables for all nouns are sourced from Wiktionary

German (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.

Here is an example of the adjective declension used in this repository:

  - 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 Verb Conjugation

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

Classical Hebrew (Coming Soon)

The vocabulary is presented to help read and understand Biblical Hebrew. A complementary audio helps well with the pronunciation.

Ancient Greek

vocabulary:
  - term: string
    definition: list

Wiktionary is the best source for Attic pronunciation, although some words are missing the audio. 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

Latin

vocabulary:
  - term: string
    definition: list

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

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。

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.