The Academy project “Global Basic Lexicon (GloBasLex)” is creating a freely accessible digital database that provides a uniformly compiled basic vocabulary for approximately 1,500 languages.

The project has a clear goal: to create a freely accessible, digital collection of basic vocabularies for approximately 1,500 languages of the world. For each of these languages, 1,000 basic terms will be recorded. In addition to a standardized phonetic transcription, the database will also contain information on how the words are structured. This will make it easier to look up words and analyze them statistically.

The data is intended not only to provide a more reliable foundation for linguistic typology research but also to create an important basis for data-driven historical linguistics. This will enable new insights to be gained into many previously under-researched language families and regions. Furthermore, the GloBasLex database is also valuable for other academic disciplines—such as cognitive science, archaeology, and genetics—that compare their own research findings with linguistic patterns.

GloBasLex will be available to the public as an online language atlas. It aims to spark fascination with the world’s linguistic diversity—a diversity that is increasingly under threat—and to raise awareness of smaller languages, thereby preserving an important part of our cultural heritage.

The project, led by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, will begin in 2026, run for 15 years, and be carried out in Tübingen under the direction of Prof. Dr. Gerhard Jäger.