Kinbank

Kinbank provides a curated database of 210,903 kinterms from a representative sample of 1,229 spoken languages to enable comparative and evolutionary analyses of kinship terminology.

Key Features:

• Extensive data collection: Contains 210,903 kinterms compiled from a representative sample of 1,229 spoken languages worldwide.
• Provenance metadata: Records transparent provenance for each kinterm to support reproducibility and source traceability.
• Extensible curation: Dataset is curated for ongoing updates and expansion as new kinterms are identified or reanalyzed.

Scientific Applications:

• Phonological analysis: Enables investigation of phonological structures in kinship terms, including analysis that revealed a strong gender bias in parent terms across 1,022 languages.
• Cultural-pattern testing: Supports testing hypotheses about cultural drivers of terminology, such as evaluating the proposed coevolution between cross-cousin marriage and bifurcate-merging terminology in Bantu languages.

Methodology:

Data collection and curation with provenance tracking, and a database structure designed for extensibility and periodic updates.