# Representing Interlingual Meaning in Lexical Databases

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.09169 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.09169/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 3 of its 49 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Jan 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Using Linguistic Typology to Enrich Multilingual Lexicons: the Case of Lexical Gaps in Kinship](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.05049/) (2022)
- [Language Diversity: Visible to Humans, Exploitable by Machines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.04723/) (2022)
- [Indian Language Wordnets and their Linkages with Princeton WordNet](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.02977/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Towards Bridging the Digital Language Divide](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.13405/) (2023)
- [Diversity and Language Technology: How Techno-Linguistic Bias Can Cause Epistemic Injustice](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.13714/) (2023)
- [Crowdsourcing Lexical Diversity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.23133/) (2024)
- [Plurification in/of language technology -- The integration of culture in next-generation AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.22097/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In today's multilingual lexical databases, the majority of the world's languages are under-represented. Beyond a mere issue of resource incompleteness, we show that existing lexical databases have structural limitations that result in a reduced expressivity on culturally-specific words and in mapping them across languages. In particular, the lexical meaning space of dominant languages, such as English, is represented more accurately while linguistically or culturally diverse languages are mapped in an approximate manner. Our paper assesses state-of-the-art multilingual lexical databases and evaluates their strengths and limitations with respect to their expressivity on lexical phenomena of linguistic diversity.