Finger and Hand
Vocabulary · one world map for each value
WALS codes 593 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Different”, covers 521 of them (88%); the least frequent, “Identical”, covers 72.
That value is most frequent in Eurasia (99% of the 95 languages coded there) and least frequent in Australia (48% of 44).
All 35 Indo-European languages coded have “Different”.
Pama-Nyungan is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 18 of 32.
Identical72 languages · 12%
Different521 languages · 88%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Identical | 2 | 1 | 4 | 23 | 33 | 9 |
| Different | 52 | 94 | 62 | 21 | 176 | 116 |
| All values | 54 | 95 | 66 | 44 | 209 | 125 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austronesian | 57 | Different | 95% |
| Indo-European | 35 | Different | 100% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 32 | Different | 56% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 23 | Different | 91% |
| Algic | 22 | Different | 91% |
| Oto-Manguean | 21 | Different | 100% |
| Altaic | 20 | Different | 100% |
| Mayan | 20 | Different | 100% |
| Niger-Congo | 19 | Different | 100% |
| Tucanoan | 18 | Different | 100% |
| Na-Dene | 17 | Different | 82% |
| Arawakan | 16 | Different | 100% |
| Hokan | 16 | Different | 56% |
| Penutian | 13 | Different | 69% |