The Optative
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence · one world map for each value
WALS codes 319 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Inflectional optative absent”, covers 271 of them (85%); the least frequent, “Inflectional optative present”, covers 48.
That value is most frequent in Australia (100% of the 15 languages coded there) and least frequent in Eurasia (70% of 125).
All 29 Niger-Congo languages coded have “Inflectional optative absent”.
Sino-Tibetan is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 11 of 17.
Inflectional optative present48 languages · 15%
Inflectional optative absent271 languages · 85%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inflectional optative present | 0 | 37 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 3 |
| Inflectional optative absent | 64 | 88 | 42 | 15 | 35 | 27 |
| All values | 64 | 125 | 44 | 15 | 41 | 30 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indo-European | 30 | Inflectional optative absent | 90% |
| Niger-Congo | 29 | Inflectional optative absent | 100% |
| Austronesian | 25 | Inflectional optative absent | 96% |
| Altaic | 21 | Inflectional optative absent | 67% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 17 | Inflectional optative absent | 65% |
| Nakh-Daghestanian | 14 | Inflectional optative present | 100% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 11 | Inflectional optative absent | 91% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 10 | Inflectional optative absent | 100% |
| Austro-Asiatic | 8 | Inflectional optative absent | 75% |
| Uralic | 8 | Inflectional optative absent | 100% |