Table 1
Summary of Glottography datasets at the time of manuscript publication.
| SOURCE PUBLICATION | LINGUISTIC AND GEOGRAPHIC COVERAGE | TIME PERIOD | OVERLAP | NO. LANGUAGES | DATASET NAME | DOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allen et al. (2016) | central California | before TOC | no | 11 | allen2016resource | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17333165 |
| Asher & Moseley (2007) | global | contemporary | partly | 4064 | asher2007world | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15287258 |
| global | TOC | partly | 4503 | |||
| Bouckaert et al. (2012) | Indo-European in Europe & southern Asia | contemp. & ancient | yes | 70 | bouckaert2012indoeuropean | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17333413 |
| Bowern (2021) | Australia | traditional | no | 326 | bowern2021australia | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17334090 |
| Bowern & Atkinson (2012) | Pama-Nyungan in Australia | traditional | no | 7 | bowern2012pama-nyungan | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17333460 |
| Carling & Gippert (2025) | global | contemporary | yes | 800 | carling2025diacl | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17334192 |
| Dedio et al. (2019) | Indo-European on British Isles & in northern Europe | 800–1900 AD | yes | 31 | dedio2019britain | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17334236 |
| Denevan (1966) | northeastern Bolivia | around 1700 AD | no | 5 | denevan1966aboriginal | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17334281 |
| Edwards (2020) | Timor island | contemporary | no | 39 | edwards2020metathesis | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17338066 |
| Eriksen (2011) | Amazonia | TOC | partly | 102 | eriksen2011nature | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17339139 |
| Figueira (1982) | Argentina | contemporary | no | 11 | figueira1982atlastotalargentina | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17339172 |
| Goddard (1999) | North America | before TOC | no | 286 | goddard1999native | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17339338 |
| Grierson (1903) | India | contemporary | no | 112 | grierson1903lsi | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17340138 |
| Haynie & Gavin (2019) | North America | before TOC | no | 350 | haynie2019modern | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17340247 |
| Hochstetler et al. (2004) | Dogon in West Africa | contemporary | no | 14 | hochstetler2004sociolinguistic | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17340571 |
| Matsumae et al. (2021) | northeast Asia | contemporary | no | 11 | matsumae2021exploring | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17340654 |
| Messineo (2011) | Gran Chaco, South America | contemporary | no | 16 | messineo2011aproximacion | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17340771 |
| Ministerio de Educación de Argentina (2009) | Argentina | contemporary | no | 12 | ministerio2009pueblos | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17340812 |
| Queixalos & Renault-Lescure (2000) | northern South America | contemporary | no | 206 | queixalos2000linguas | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17341026 |
| Rantanen et al. (2021) | Northern Europe & northwestern Siberia | contemporary & traditional | yes | 41 | rantanen2021uralic | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17341268 |
| Schapper (2020) | Papuan on Alor-Pantar | contemporary | no | 18 | schapper2020papuan | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17341890 |
| Suttles & Suttles (1985) | American Northwest Coast | traditional | no | 14 | suttles1985northwest | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17341948 |
| Steever (2019) | Dravidian in South Asia | contemporary | no | 98 | steever2019dravidian | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17341914 |
| Tarble de Scaramelli & Zucchi (1984) | Amazonia | traditional | no | 10 | tarble1984nuevos | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17341986 |
| Vuillermet (2012) | Amazonia | contemporary | no | 27 | vuillermet2012grammar | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17342021 |
| Walker & Ribeiro (2011) | Arawakan in South America | contemporary | no | 30 | walker2011bayesian | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17342060 |
| Wikipedia contributors (2024) | global | contemporary | yes | 158 | wikipedia2024officiallang | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17342116 |
| Wurm & Hattori (1981) | Australia, Papunesia & southeast Asia | contemporary | no | 1921 | wurm1981pacific | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17342180 |
| Zucchi (2017) | Arawakan in Amazonia | traditional | no | 10 | zucchi2017arqueologia | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17342211 |
[i] TOC: Time of (European) contact.
Figure 1
Geographic language polygon density in Glottography. The map shows the number of unique language polygons per grid cell. The colour gradient is pseudo-logarithmic, emphasising differences in order of magnitude.
Figure 2
Number of languages included in and missing from Glottography for the 25 largest language families (by number of languages) in Glottolog.
Figure 3
Comparison of coverage in Glottography and Ethnologue. The map shows the difference in the number of unique language polygons per grid cell (Glottography minus Ethnologue). Positive values indicate greater coverage in Glottography (blue), negative values greater coverage in Ethnologue (red). Differences near zero (white) indicate similar coverage across datasets. The colour gradient is pseudo-logarithmic, highlighting differences in order of magnitude.
Figure 4
Languages in Glottolog with a corresponding polygon in Glottography (blue) and without one (red). Point locations are based on Glottolog.
Figure 5
Glottography language polygons for Shona, Bengali, Algonquin, and Bulgarian from multiple sources. The contemporary and traditional polygons in the Atlas of the World’s Languages are treated as distinct sources. As these polygons are identical outside the Americas and Australia, only one is included.