nairaxo/comorian_swadesh

Comorian Swadesh List

Dataset Summary

This dataset is a multilingual lexical resource linking words across four major languages and multiple Comorian regional varieties:

• English (en)
• French (fr)
• Swahili (sw) and its normalized form (sw_clean)
• Comorian language varieties:
  • swb — Shimaore (Mayotte)
  • wni — Shindzuani (Anjouan)
  • wlc — Shimwali (Moheli)
  • zdj — Shingazidja (Grande Comore)

The dataset supports linguistic comparison, cross-lingual NLP, and low-resource machine translation, especially for under-documented Comorian dialects.
It also includes indicators for words belonging to the Swadesh and Yakhontov basic vocabulary lists.

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Data Fields

Field	Type	Description
en	string	English word
fr	string	French word
fr_words	list[string]	Tokenization or decomposition of the French word
sw	string	Swahili word
sw_clean	string	Normalized Swahili word
swb	list[string]	Shimaore equivalents
wni	list[string]	Shindzuani equivalents
wlc	list[string]	Shimwali equivalents
zdj	list[string]	Shingazidja equivalents
swadesh_original	string ("yes"/"no")	Indicates presence in the original Swadesh list
swadesh_yakhontov	string ("yes"/"no")	Indicates presence in the Yakhontov list

---

Example Entry

{
  "en": "I",
  "fr": "je",
  "sw": "mimi",
  "sw_clean": "mimi",
  "swb": ["mi", "wami"],
  "wni": [],
  "wlc": [],
  "zdj": ["mimi"],
  "fr_words": ["je"],
  "swadesh_original": "yes",
  "swadesh_yakhontov": "yes"
}

How to Load

from datasets import load_dataset

dataset = load_dataset("nairaxo/shikomori-swadesh")
print(dataset)

Citation

If you use this dataset, please cite the following work:

@misc{mohamed2024harnessingtransferlearningswahili,
      title={Harnessing Transfer Learning from Swahili: Advancing Solutions for Comorian Dialects}, 
      author={Naira Abdou Mohamed and Zakarya Erraji and Abdessalam Bahafid and Imade Benelallam},
      year={2024},
      eprint={2412.12143},
      archivePrefix={arXiv},
      primaryClass={cs.CL},
      url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.12143}
}