Sino Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus

汉藏(ST)，一方面是汉语，另一方面是数百种藏缅(TB)语言，构成了世界上最大的语系之一，讲汉语的人超过10亿。该家族的许多语言都没有得到充分的证明，而且濒临灭绝，即使是更知名的语言之间的关系也仍然存在争议。《汉藏词源词典与同义词词典》项目于1987年在加州大学伯克利分校启动，目标有两个：(1)建立一个词源词典，在主要的分类水平上重建祖先语言的有意义的口语单位(例如，原始-库基-钦语、原始-罗罗缅语、原始-TB、原始-ST)，并适当注意类型学和音系学的合理性；STEDT研究的核心是一个在线MySQL数据库系统，包括两个主要部分：(1)一个包含近100万条不同类型的词汇数据库，用于数百种语言和方言的近100万条记录，来自大约500个来源。(2)重建的原型数据库，包括大约3,000个根和根变体。在这个复杂的语言领域，区分真正的同源词和借词尤其困难，因为在这里，多种语言的使用非常普遍。与南部中国和东南亚其他语系(泰-卡达语、苗语、孟高棉语、南岛语)的专家一起，STEDT研究正在帮助决定这些大语系之间的相互关系的更大问题。在新的资助期的第一年，一个新的用户友好的基于浏览器的查询界面将被创建并向公众开放。第二年和第三年将致力于建立一个在线“协作室”，从世界各地的语言学家那里征集新的科技比较/历史数据和发现。请访问Stedt的网站：http://stedt.berkeley.edu.。

Sino-Tibetan (ST), comprising Chinese on the one hand and the hundreds of Tibeto-Burman (TB) languages on the other, constitutes one of the great language families of the world, with well over a billion speakers. Many languages of the family are poorly attested and endangered, and the relationships among even the better known ones remain controversial. STEDT (the Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus project) began at U.C. Berkeley in 1987 with a twofold goal: (1) to create an etymological dictionary reconstructing the meaningful spoken units of the ancestor languages at major taxonomic levels (e.g., Proto-Kuki-Chin, Proto-Lolo-Burmese, Proto-TB, Proto-ST), paying due attention to typological and phonological plausibility; and (2) to produce a semantically based historical thesaurus, classifying the reconstructed roots by meaning, and recognizing phonosemantic variation at all time depths.The backbone of STEDT research is an online MySQL database system with two main parts: (1) A lexical database containing nearly a million records of disparate types, for hundreds of languages and dialects, drawn from some 500 sources. (2) A database of reconstructed protoforms including some 3,000 roots and root variants. Distinguishing true cognates from borrowings is especially difficult in this complex linguistic area where multilingualism is pervasive. Together with work by specialists in other language families of southern China and Southeast Asia (Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien, Mon-Khmer, Austronesian), STEDT research is helping to decide larger questions about the interrelationships among these great families.During the first year of the new grant period, a new user-friendly browser-based query interface will be created and made available to the public. The second and third years will be devoted to the creation of an online "collaboratory", to solicit new ST comparative/historical data and findings from linguists worldwide. Visit STEDT on the web at http://stedt.berkeley.edu.