Semantic Distinctions 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, “Both direct and indirect evidentials”, covers 71.
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”.
Sino-Tibetan is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 7 of 18.
No grammatical evidentials181 languages · 43%
Only indirect evidentials166 languages · 40%
Both direct and indirect evidentials71 languages · 17%
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 |
| Only indirect evidentials | 2 | 33 | 9 | 5 | 84 | 33 |
| Both direct and indirect evidentials | 1 | 29 | 2 | 3 | 16 | 20 |
| All values | 35 | 95 | 44 | 31 | 134 | 79 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indo-European | 23 | Only indirect evidentials | 43% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 22 | Only indirect evidentials | 77% |
| Austronesian | 20 | No grammatical evidentials | 85% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 18 | No grammatical evidentials | 72% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 18 | Both direct and indirect evidentials | 39% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 17 | No grammatical evidentials | 59% |
| Arawakan | 14 | Only indirect evidentials | 57% |
| Niger-Congo | 14 | No grammatical evidentials | 93% |
| Oto-Manguean | 12 | No grammatical evidentials | 58% |
| Algic | 11 | Only indirect evidentials | 55% |
| Hokan | 10 | Both direct and indirect evidentials | 70% |
| Na-Dene | 10 | Only indirect evidentials | 70% |
| Nakh-Daghestanian | 10 | Only indirect evidentials | 40% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 9 | No grammatical evidentials | 78% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.