CBOLD

The CBOLD project (short for Comparative Bantu Online Dictionary) was started in 1994 by Larry Hyman and John Lowe to produce in Berkeley a lexicographic database to support and enhance the theoretical, descriptive, and historical linguistic study of the languages in the Bantu family. The database includes a substantial list of reconstructed Proto-Bantu roots, several thousand additional reconstructed regional roots, and reflexes of these roots for a substantial subset of the 500+ daughter languages. Published and unpublished dictionaries of selected Bantu languages have been scanned, converted to test, and entered into the database. Working with colleagues and students from the United States, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Cameroon, Tanzania and other countries, organized into the Bantu Working Group (BWG), the projects primary goals are to:

• set up a collaborative, accessible database for the use of researchers in Bantu languages;
• establish a unified format for computational lexicographic work in the Bantu languages; and
• input extensive (annotated) dictionaries and wordlists of Bantu languages.