IELex: Indo-European Lexical Cognacy Data and Phylogenetic Trees

IELex data and scripts provide a Bayesian phylogenetic tree sample for the Indo-European language family. The repository contains a long-format table of cognate relationships, language glottocodes, and concept mappings, alongside NEXUS files and consensus trees. This version is maintained as a current alternative to the original offline database, based on work by Michael Dunn at Uppsala University.

Use Cases

• Building Bayesian phylogenetic models based on lexical cognate data.
• Conducting phylogenetic comparative analyses using the provided tree samples.
• Mapping language concepts to standardized glosses via the Concepticon mapping.
• Visualizing language relationships using the provided NEXUS and tree graphic files.

Strengths

• Includes a long-format table with language, concept, and cognate set for each entry.
• Provides multiple output formats: CSV tables, NEXUS files, and consensus tree graphics.
• Maps concepts to the standardized Concepticon reference system.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Based on the Indo-European Lexical Cognacy Database (IELex) from Dunn et al. (2011).

Collection Method

Data and scripts for producing Bayesian phylogenetic tree samples.

Time Range

The underlying database is from 2011; this repository version is from 2021.

Freshness

Last updated date is unknown.

Geography

Covers languages from the Indo-European family.