Sino Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus

汉藏语（ST），一方面包括汉语，另一方面包括数百种藏缅语（TB），构成了世界上最大的语族之一，拥有超过10亿的使用者。该家族的许多语言都缺乏证据和濒临灭绝，即使是更知名的语言之间的关系仍然存在争议。STEDT（汉藏语源词典和辞典项目）于1987年在加州大学伯克利分校开始，其目标有两个：(1)创建一个语源词典，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，原库基琴语，原洛缅语，原tb语，原st语），适当注意类型学和音系上的合理性；(2)生成基于语义的历史词库，对重构词根进行语义分类，识别各个时间深度的音韵变化。STEDT研究的支柱是一个在线MySQL数据库系统，它主要由两个部分组成：(1)一个词汇数据库，包含来自500个来源的近百万条不同类型的记录，涉及数百种语言和方言。(2)重建的原始形态数据库，包括约3000根和根变体。在这个多种语言普遍存在的复杂语言领域，区分真正的同源词和借词尤其困难。与中国南方和东南亚其他语系（台加泰语、苗族语、孟高棉语、南岛语）专家的工作一起，STEDT的研究正在帮助确定这些大族之间相互关系的更大问题。在新拨款期的首年，政府会为市民提供一个方便使用的网页查询界面。第二年和第三年将致力于创建一个在线“合作实验室”，从世界各地的语言学家那里征集新的ST比较/历史数据和发现。访问STEDT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.