# Jambu: A historical linguistic database for South Asian languages

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.02514 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.02514/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 76 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 5 Jun 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [A Call for Clarity in Reporting BLEU Scores](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.08771/) (2018)
- [Ab Antiquo: Neural Proto-language Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.02477/) (2019)
- [Are Automatic Methods for Cognate Detection Good Enough for Phylogenetic Reconstruction in Historical Linguistics?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.05416/) (2018)
- [Computational historical linguistics and language diversity in South Asia](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12524/) (2022)
- [Computational Historical Linguistics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.08099/) (2018)
- [Neural Unsupervised Reconstruction of Protolanguage Word Forms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.08684/) (2022)
- [A probabilistic assessment of the Indo-Aryan Inner-Outer Hypothesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01957/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Improved Neural Protoform Reconstruction via Reflex Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.18769/) (2024)
- [Semisupervised Neural Proto-Language Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.05930/) (2024)
- [PILA: A Historical-Linguistic Dataset of Proto-Italic and Latin](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16341/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce Jambu, a cognate database of South Asian languages which unifies dozens of previous sources in a structured and accessible format. The database includes 287k lemmata from 602 lects, grouped together in 23k sets of cognates. We outline the data wrangling necessary to compile the dataset and train neural models for reflex prediction on the Indo-Aryan subset of the data. We hope that Jambu is an invaluable resource for all historical linguists and Indologists, and look towards further improvement and expansion of the database.