Coding of Evidentiality
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence · one world map for each value
WALS codes 418 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “No grammatical evidentials”, covers 181 of them (43%); the least frequent, “Modal morpheme”, covers 7.
That value is most frequent in Africa (91% of the 35 languages coded there) and least frequent in North America (25% of 134).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Niger-Congo is the most uniform: 13 of 14 have “No grammatical evidentials”.
Indo-European is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 8 of 23.
No grammatical evidentials181 languages · 43%
Verbal affix or clitic131 languages · 31%
Part of the tense system24 languages · 6%
Separate particle65 languages · 16%
Modal morpheme7 languages · 2%
Mixed systems10 languages · 2%
One map per value; each dot is a language WALS codes with that value.
By macro-area
| Value | Africa | Eurasia | Papunesia | Australia | North America | South America |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No grammatical evidentials | 32 | 33 | 33 | 23 | 34 | 26 |
| Verbal affix or clitic | 0 | 31 | 4 | 4 | 66 | 26 |
| Part of the tense system | 0 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| Separate particle | 3 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 31 | 19 |
| Modal morpheme | 0 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Mixed systems | 0 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| All values | 35 | 95 | 44 | 31 | 134 | 79 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indo-European | 23 | No grammatical evidentials | 35% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 22 | Verbal affix or clitic | 50% |
| Austronesian | 20 | No grammatical evidentials | 85% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 18 | No grammatical evidentials | 72% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 18 | Verbal affix or clitic | 44% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 17 | No grammatical evidentials | 59% |
| Arawakan | 14 | No grammatical evidentials | 36% |
| Niger-Congo | 14 | No grammatical evidentials | 93% |
| Oto-Manguean | 12 | No grammatical evidentials | 58% |
| Algic | 11 | No grammatical evidentials | 45% |
| Hokan | 10 | Verbal affix or clitic | 80% |
| Na-Dene | 10 | Verbal affix or clitic | 70% |
| Nakh-Daghestanian | 10 | Part of the tense system | 40% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 9 | No grammatical evidentials | 78% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- No grammatical evidentials: English, Russian, Spanish, Indonesian, Mandarin, Hungarian
- Verbal affix or clitic: Japanese, Lezgian, Abkhaz, Korean, Kannada, Greenlandic (West)
- Part of the tense system: Turkish, Persian, Evenki, Ingush, Hunzib, Barasano
- Separate particle: Basque, Tagalog, Slave, Chamorro, Guaraní, Jakaltek
- Modal morpheme: French, Finnish, German, Mangarrayi, Gooniyandi, Passamaquoddy-Maliseet
- Mixed systems: Georgian, Khalkha, Sanuma, Ika, Diyari, Swedish