I took one translation dictionary of Sranan Tongo (a creole from Suriname), and one of Proto Indo-European, and examined which English terms appeared letter-for-letter exactly in both dictionaries as definitions. Then I sorted the common terms into categories. PIE is an old language, and Sranan Tongo is a simple language, and I wanted to see what basic concepts existed in their overlap, especially so that I could compare it with the Natural Semantic Metalanguage of Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard. Here's the set:
* abstract nouns: honor, knowledge, desire, wisdom, love
* adjectives: afraid, alert, alike, alive, alone, angry, anxious, awake, bad, barefoot, beloved, bent, big, bitter, black, small, sharp, broad, broken, brown, cold, crooked, curved, daring, dark, dead, deep, difficult, dirty, drunk, dry, early, fat, far, evil, flat, free, full, good, great, loved, green, happy, healthy, heavy, high, holy, hot, hungry, infertile, lightweight, little, loaded, long, old, naked, narrow, near, new, pure, quick, red, rotten, rough, right, sharp, short, small, smooth, sore, sour, straight, strong, sweet, thick, thin, thorny, tight, true, white, yellow, warm, weak, wet, wide, wild, young, even, first
* animal: buck, bull, cow, deer, dog, duck, eagle, fish, goat, goose, he-goat, hog, horse, louse, otter, pig, sheep, snake, wasp, worm, ant, billy goat, bird
* articles and determiners: this, that
* body parts: abdomen, arm, arse, beard, brain, bone, breast, horn, buttocks, chest, chin, ear, eye, feather, foot, hand, head, heart, heel, hide, hip, mouth, hoof, horn, jaw, joint, knee, leg, lip, liver, lung, navel, neck, nose, penis, skull, teat, udder, stomach, throat, tongue, tooth, wing
* conjunctions and connectives: and, or
* dimensions: age, aroma, darkness, color, taste,
* dynamical event: breath, sigh, thunder, wind, wave, death, decay, fire, life
* human artifact: arrow, bed, belt, boat, bow, thread, cord, cart, comb, door, fireplace, rope, thread, wheel, fetter, wagon, lock, needle, yoke, ring, well, house, city, village, shelter, vehicle
* malady: cut, sore, wound
* natural location: lake, river, sea, field, horse, mountain, path, hill, earth, ground, pasture, sky
* natural object: cloud, body, stone, egg, human being, star, sun, moon
* non-adjective states and conditions: agreement, anger, anxiety, fear, light, darkness,
* numbers: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, thousand
* organism collective: army, flock, herd, multitude, people,
* particular time period: yesterday
* person: self, brother, brother-in-law, carpenter, dad, father, guest, husband, king, lord, master, mother, man, nurse, parent, sister, slave, son, wife, woman, worker, twin
* plant or plant part: apple, branch, cabbage, flower, fruit, grain, grass, leaf, root, seed, stick, thorn, tree, twig
* prepositions, adverbs, and directions: about, above, after, afterwards, again, along, among, around, at, away, before, between, on, through, to, up, down, left, right, in, inside, over, east, as, like, so, even, other, same, not, with, together, without, otherwise, yet
* pronouns and interrogatives: she, you, your, who, what
* quantifiers and determiners: all, another, both, every, half, double, each, few, many, whole
* relative locations: there, yonder, source, place, way, path, middle, end
* roles for utterances: name, insult, word, speech, voice
* shape: arch, beam, bend, fold, joint, lump, heap, pile, ring
* social evaluative roles: gift, payment, punishment, burden, contract, wage, deed, bond
* substance: air, ashes, beer, blood, bark, bread, butter, cloth, clothing, copper, dirt, fat, gold, dew, dust, fleece, flesh, foam, fog, hair, honey, meat, milk, oil, salt, silver, skin, smoke, snow, sweat, water, ice, rain, slime
* supernatural object: god, deity, spirit, magic
* time period or unit of time: day, night, morning, month, year, winter
* verbs: to abandon, to allow, to appear, to arise, to arouse, to arrange, to arrive, to ask, to bake, to be, to be able to, to be afraid, to be angry, to be born, to be glad, to be greedy, to bear, to beat, to belch, to believe, to bend, to bind, to bite, to blow, to boil, to break, to breathe, to bring, to build, to burn, to buy, to call, to carve, to chew, to clean, to climb, to come, to cook, to copulate, to count, to crave, to crush, to cry out, to cut, to dance, to dawn, to deceive, to desire, to die, to dig, to dip, to disappear, to do, to drink, to drip, to drive, to eat, to end, to enlarge, to escape, to fall, to fear, to fetter, to fight, to find, to fit, to flee, to float, to flow, to fly, to fold, to freeze, to fry, to give, to go, to hang, to hear, to help, to hide, to hit, to hold, to hum, to hunt, to hurt, to jump, to kill, to know, to laugh, to lay, to learn, to leave, to let, to lie, to like, to live, to lock, to look, to lose, to love, to milk, to paint, to pay, to pierce, to place, to play, to pray, to protect, to pull, to push, to put, to race, to rejoice, to ride, to rinse, to roast, to row, to rub, to rule, to run, to safeguard, to say, to scrape, to scratch, to search, to see, to sell, to set, to settle, to sew, to shake, to sieve, to sing, to sit, to sleep, to slip, to slip away, to smell, to smoke, to split, to stab, to stand, to stay, to steal, to stop, to stretch out, to stroke, to suck, to support, to swear, to sweat, to swell, to swim, to take, to talk, to taste, to teach, to think, to throw, to thunder, to tie, to touch, to travel, to trust, to try out, to turn, to understand, to vomit, to walk, to want, to wash, to weave, to whip, to wipe, to wish, to wobble, to work
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I checked which words had definitions in either Sranan Tongo or PIE and which also are meanings for Blissymbolics symbols. Here are the new terms generated by that procedure:
[adult, against, although, animal, aunt, automobile, birth, bottom, but, change, child, claw, corner, country, curve, destroy, enclosure, fence, food, forehead, from, get, girl, grandmother, heat, here, hole, into, it, language, make, melt, mind, money, now, offspring, person, power, relative, rotate, soft, the, thing, toe, top, towards, under, vagina, where, window]
Nice.
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