The Wordcorr Idea. Wordcorr is a tool for comparing speech varieties. It can
handle a large number of matching word lists -- how many depends on
your operating system, screen size, and font choices. It makes the
full International Phonetic Alphabet available to you, as well as
other notations.
Once the raw data are organized, Wordcorr
- keeps track of your judgments
about what forms might match each other genetically, and the
way they match
- tabulates your judgments
into correspondence sets (that's where the corr in the
name comes from -- correspondence set)
- organizes the sets as the
building blocks for a detailed analysis of the
development of all the speech varieties under study.
Scholars, students, and interested
nonspecialists can download Wordcorr through this Web site and use
it. It also can be used by specialists to form a research team,
share data, and compare analytical perspectives.
More
background ... |
Wordcorr owes a lot to John Wimbish, who
invented WordSurv while doing language surveys in insular Southeast
Asia.
He worked out the vertical
presentation and tagging of comparable forms and the use of Indel
(insertion - deletion) symbols.
Wordcorr builds on John's insight,
while doing considerably more with the data than WordSurv. |
