Appendix:Latvian Swadesh list

This is an Swadesh list of words in English and Latvian.

Presentation

At the end of the 1940s new insights of radiocarbon dating became known to the public. The linguist Morris Swadesh believed that words decayed in a roughly similar way and therefore undertook to transfer these methods to determine the relationship of languages. To be able to compare languages from different cultures, he based his lists on meanings presumed to be universal, that means to be available in as many as possible cultures. He then used the fraction of agreeing cognates between any two related languages to compute their divergence time by some (still debated) algorithms. Starting 1950 with 165 meanings, his list grew up in 1952 to 215 meanings, which, however, turned out to be not universal enough. Subsequently it was reduced to 207, and 1955 to 100 meanings, again reformulated and published posthumous in 1971.

For further information, including the full final version, read the Wikipedia article: Swadesh list.

Note that Swadesh lists are not to be considered as an elementary lexicon to communicate with speakers of a given language; for such a purpose, please refer to the numerous existing Wikitravel.

List

No.	English	Latvian Latviešu Valoda
1	I	es
2	you (singular)	tu
3	he	viņš
4	we	mēs
5	you (plural)	jūs
6	they	viņi
7	this	šis
8	that	tas
9	here	šeit
10	there	tur
11	who	kurš
12	what	kas
13	where	kur
14	when	kad
15	how	kā
16	not	ne
17	all	viss
18	many	daudz
19	some	daži
20	few	nedaudzi
21	other	cits
22	one	viens
23	two	divi
24	three	trīs
25	four	četri
26	five	pieci
27	big	liels
28	long	garš
29	wide	plats
30	thick	biezs
31	heavy	smags
32	small	mazs
33	short	īss
34	narrow	šaurs
35	thin	tievs
36	woman	sieviete
37	man (adult male)	vīrietis
38	man (human being)	cilvēks
39	child	bērns
40	wife	sieva
41	husband	vīrs
42	mother	māte
43	father	tēvs
44	animal	dzīvnieks; zvērs;
45	fish	zivs
46	bird	putns
47	dog	suns
48	louse	uts
49	snake	čūska
50	worm	tārps
51	tree	koks
52	forest	mežs
53	stick	žagars; miets; nūja;
54	fruit	auglis
55	seed	sēkla
56	leaf	lapa
57	root	sakne
58	bark (of a tree)	miza
59	flower	zieds; puķe;
60	grass	zāle
61	rope	aukla; virve; striķis;
62	skin	āda
63	meat	gaļa; miesa;
64	blood	asinis
65	bone	kauls
66	fat (noun)	tauki
67	egg	ola
68	horn	rags
69	tail	aste
70	feather	spalva
71	hair	mats
72	head	galva
73	ear	auss
74	eye	acs
75	nose	deguns
76	mouth	mute
77	tooth	zobs
78	tongue (organ)	mēle
79	fingernail	nags
80	foot	pēda
81	leg	kāja
82	knee	celis
83	hand	roka
84	wing	spārns
85	belly	vēders
86	guts	zarnas; iekšas;
87	neck	kakls
88	back	mugura
89	breast	krūts
90	heart	sirds
91	liver	aknas
92	to drink	dzert
93	to eat	ēst
94	to bite	kost
95	to suck	sūkt
96	to spit	spļaut
97	to vomit	vemt
98	to blow	pūst
99	to breathe	elpot
100	to laugh	smieties
101	to see	redzēt
102	to hear	dzirdēt
103	to know	zināt
104	to think	domāt
105	to smell	ost, saost; smaržot;
106	to fear	baidīties
107	to sleep	gulēt; dusēt; čučēt;
108	to live	dzīvot
109	to die	mirt
110	to kill	nogalināt
111	to fight	cīnīties, kauties
112	to hunt	medīt
113	to hit	sist
114	to cut	griezt
115	to split	sadalīt, sašķelt
116	to stab	durt
117	to scratch	skrāpēt
118	to dig	rakt
119	to swim	peldēt
120	to fly	lidot
121	to walk	iet
122	to come	nākt
123	to lie (as in a bed)	gulēt; gulties;
124	to sit	sēdēt; sēsties;
125	to stand	stāvēt; stāties;
126	to turn (intransitive)	griezties;
127	to fall	krist
128	to give	dot
129	to hold	turēt
130	to squeeze	spiest; žmiegt;
131	to rub	berzēt
132	to wash	mazgāt
133	to wipe	slaucīt
134	to pull	vilkt
135	to push	stumt; grūst;
136	to throw	mest; sviest;
137	to tie	siet
138	to sew	šūt
139	to count	skaitīt
140	to say	teikt; sacīt;
141	to sing	dziedāt
142	to play	spēlēt
143	to float	peldēt; pludināt;
144	to flow	tecēt
145	to freeze	salt; stingt;
146	to swell	uztūkt; piebriest;
147	sun	saule
148	moon	mēness
149	star	zvaigzne
150	water	ūdens
151	rain	lietus
152	river	upe
153	lake	ezers
154	sea	jūra
155	salt	sāls
156	stone	akmens
157	sand	smiltis
158	dust	putekļi
159	earth	zeme; augsne;
160	cloud	mākonis
161	fog	migla
162	sky	debess, debesis
163	wind	vējš
164	snow	sniegs
165	ice	ledus
166	smoke	dūmi
167	fire	uguns
168	ash	pelni
169	to burn	degt
170	road	ceļš
171	mountain	kalns
172	red	sarkans; ruds (hair);
173	green	zaļš
174	yellow	dzeltens
175	white	balts
176	black	melns
177	night	nakts
178	day	diena
179	year	gads
180	warm	silts
181	cold	auksts
182	full	pilns
183	new	jauns
184	old	vecs; sens;
185	good	labs
186	bad	slikts; ļauns;
187	rotten	sapuvis
188	dirty	netīrs
189	straight	taisns; tiešs;
190	round	apaļš
191	sharp (as a knife)	ass
192	dull (as a knife)	truls
193	smooth	gluds
194	wet	mitrs; slapjš;
195	dry	sauss
196	correct	pareizs
197	near	tuvs
198	far	tāls
199	right	labais; pa labi;
200	left	kreisais; pa kreisi;
201	at	pie
202	in	iekš
203	with	ar
204	and	un
205	if	ja
206	because	tāpēc (ka); jo;
207	name	vārds; nosaukums;

Swadesh lists
Afrikaans – Albanian – Antillean Creole – Arabic (standard) (p), Egyptian Arabic (p), Palestinian Arabic (p), Tunisian Arabic (t) – Armenian (t,p) – Aromanian – Bangala – Bashkir – Basque – Belarusian – Breton – Bulgarian (t) – Burmese (t,p) – Catalan – Chinese: Cantonese, Gan (p), Mandarin (t), Min Nan (Amoy), Old Chinese (p) – Croatian – Czech – Danish – Dutch – Egyptian (Middle)  – Esperanto – Estonian – Finnish – Fiji Hindi – French (p) – Frisian (West) – Friulian – Georgian (t,p) – German (p) – Greek (modern) (p), Greek (ancient) – Guaraní – Haida – Haitian Creole – Hausa – Hindi – Hittite – Hmong (White) – Hungarian – Icelandic – Indonesian – Irish – Istro-Romanian – Italian (p) – Japanese (t) – Kashubian – Khmer (p) – Korean (t) – Kurdish – Latvian – Lingala – Lithuanian – Luwian – Macedonian (t) – Malagasy – Malay – Maltese – Megleno-Romanian – Mongolian – Old Portuguese (p) – Ossetian (p) – Polish (p) – Portuguese (p) – Proto-Indo-European – Purepecha – Quechua – Romani – Romanian – Russian – Sanskrit (t) – Scottish Gaelic – Serbian – Slovenian – Spanish (p) – Sranan – Swahili – Swedish – Tagalog – Tajik (t) – Tahitian – Thai (t) – Tocharian B – Turkish – Vietnamese – Walloon – Zulu
The list may also include: (t) the transcription in Latin characters; (p) the phonetic transcription