Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus Project [STEDT]

FAIN: PM-50072-07

University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA 94704-5940)
James A. Matisoff (Project Director: July 2006 to January 2011)

The compilation of an etymological dictionary and thesaurus of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the common ancestor of languages spoken in China, India, and Southeast Asia.

The Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus (STEDT) Project in the Linguistics Department at the University of California, Berkeley, has been going on for nearly 20 years, with the goal of producing (a) an etymological dictionary of Proto-Tibeto-Burman and Proto-Sino-Tibetan, arranged according to the phonological shape of the roots; as well as (b) a thesaurus of these proto-lexicons, where the roots are arranged by their meaning. Large databases have been created from more than 500 sources covering about 350 languages and dialects, permitting the reconstruction of nearly 3000 roots, and the formulation of diachronic sound-laws and patterns of semantic change. Many publications have emerged from this research. During the next grant period, the emphasis will be on electronic archiving and dissemination of our data and conclusions, and on collaboration with research institutes in China which have created independent databases of their own.