---
license:
  - mit
  - cc-by-4.0
  - cc-by-sa-3.0
task_categories:
  - feature-extraction
tags:
  - linguistics
  - languages
  - typology
  - phonology
  - glottolog
  - wals
  - phoible
  - endangered-languages
  - language-families
  - geospatial
size_categories:
  - 100K<n<1M
---

# Language Data

Curated linguistic datasets covering 23,740 languages. Pulls from Glottolog, WALS, PHOIBLE, and Joshua Project, plus original integration work combining them into a single queryable format.

## Datasets

### Core Files

| File | Records | Size | Source | License |
|------|---------|------|--------|---------|
| `glottolog_coordinates.json` | 21,329 languoids | 3.8 MB | [Glottolog](https://glottolog.org) | CC-BY-4.0 |
| `glottolog_languoid.csv` | 23,740 languoids | 1.8 MB | [Glottolog](https://glottolog.org) | CC-BY-4.0 |
| `phoible.csv` | 105,484 phonemes | 24 MB | [PHOIBLE](https://phoible.org) | CC-BY-SA-3.0 |
| `wals_languages.csv` | 3,573 languages | 460 KB | [WALS](https://wals.info) | CC-BY-4.0 |
| `wals_values.csv` | 76,475 feature values | 4.5 MB | [WALS](https://wals.info) | CC-BY-4.0 |
| `wals_parameters.csv` | 192 typological features | 8 KB | [WALS](https://wals.info) | CC-BY-4.0 |
| `world_languages_integrated.json` | 7,130 languages | 8.1 MB | Original integration | MIT |

### Subdirectories

**`language-families/`** -- Language family trees, Proto-Indo-European reconstructions, speaker counts. Restructured from Glottolog with enrichment from multiple sources. 10 JSON files covering family hierarchies up to 18 levels deep.

**`historical-corpora/`** -- CLMET historical English corpus metadata.

**`lemmatization/`** -- Historical lemma mappings (738 entries) for normalizing older English texts.

**`reference-corpora/`** -- Brown Corpus part-of-speech statistics.

## The Integrated Dataset

`world_languages_integrated.json` is the main original contribution. It merges four sources by ISO 639-3 code:

- **Glottolog** -- coordinates, family classification, macroarea (7,040 languages)
- **Joshua Project** -- speaker populations, demographics (7,130 languages)
- **Language history** -- family tree positions, historical periods (198 languages)
- **US indigenous** -- endangerment status, revitalization efforts (13 languages)

```python
import json

with open("world_languages_integrated.json") as f:
    languages = json.load(f)

# Each record looks like:
# {
#   "iso_639_3": "eng",
#   "name": "English",
#   "glottolog": { "latitude": 53.0, "longitude": -1.0, "family_name": "Indo-European", ... },
#   "joshua_project": { "population": 379007140, "countries": [...], ... },
#   "speaker_count": { "count": 379007140, "source": "joshua_project_aggregated", ... },
#   "data_sources": ["joshua_project", "glottolog"]
# }

# Find endangered languages with coordinates
endangered = [
    lang for lang in languages
    if lang.get("glottolog", {}).get("latitude")
    and lang.get("speaker_count", {}).get("count", float("inf")) < 1000
]
```

This dataset is also available separately on HuggingFace as [lukeslp/world-languages](https://huggingface.co/datasets/lukeslp/world-languages).

## What's Not Here

**ISO 639-3 code tables** -- SIL International doesn't allow redistribution. Get them directly from [iso639-3.sil.org](https://iso639-3.sil.org/code_tables/download_tables).

## License

Multiple licenses apply. See [LICENSE.md](LICENSE.md) for details.

- **Our work** (integration, curation, language-families): MIT
- **Glottolog, WALS**: CC-BY-4.0
- **PHOIBLE**: CC-BY-SA-3.0 (share-alike)

## Sources

- [Glottolog](https://glottolog.org) -- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
- [WALS Online](https://wals.info) -- World Atlas of Language Structures
- [PHOIBLE](https://phoible.org) -- Phonological inventory database
- [Joshua Project](https://joshuaproject.net) -- People group demographics

## Author

**Luke Steuber**
- Website: [lukesteuber.com](https://lukesteuber.com)
- Bluesky: [@lukesteuber.com](https://bsky.app/profile/lukesteuber.com)