Core Vocabulary · Lingua Latīna & Ἑλληνική

Coverage ladder — how far the words take you

Know the N most frequent words of an author and you understand this share of their running text. The Dickinson core is the first stretch of every curve.

Each line is one author. The horizontal axis is how many of that author's most-frequent words you've learned (log scale); the vertical axis is the percentage of that author's running text you would then understand. A line that climbs fast and sits high marks an author you can read with relatively little vocabulary (Caesar, Xenophon); a low, slow line marks a harder author who needs much more (Tacitus, Pindar, the poets). Every line begins with the shared Dickinson core. Click an author in the legend to add/remove its line; hover a legend chip to spotlight one; hover a point for exact figures. The chart starts with the most foundational authors shown — use "show all" to compare the whole field.

After the core — author build-up tiers

Each bar starts at the share of text the introductory Dickinson core already covers, then adds the author-specific tiers needed to reach 80 % (T1), 90 % (T2) and 95 % (T3) coverage.

Each bar is one author. The first segment shows how much of that author's text the introductory Dickinson core alone covers; the following segments are the extra author-specific "build-up" words needed to climb to 80 % (T1), 90 % (T2) and 95 % (T3) coverage. Longer build-up segments = more new vocabulary that author demands beyond the core. Hover a segment for exact word counts and any corpus note (e.g. partial corpora). Use Sort to reorder the authors by curriculum difficulty, by core-coverage %, or chronologically by floruit (Plautus → Augustine; Homer → Lucian) — the chronological view shows how the reading vocabulary shifts across the history of each language. Like the coverage ladder above, this chart starts with a handful of authors shown — click an author in the legend to add or remove its bar, hover to spotlight one. Both charts share the same selection, so toggling an author updates them together.

Sort:

Semantic map of the core

Dickinson core words grouped by theme (area ∝ number of words). Click a region to study it.

The Dickinson core, grouped by semantic theme. Each rectangle's area is proportional to how many core words fall in that theme (War, the Household, Emotions, …), showing where the foundational vocabulary concentrates. Click a theme to jump to those words in Study.

Parts of speech

Grammatical make-up of the core list.

How the core list breaks down by part of speech — how many of the foundational words are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and so on.

Shared vs. author-specific build-up

Of the build-up words, how many of the authors share each one. Words common to all authors are the highest-value next step.

Take every build-up (non-core) word and count how many of the authors use it. The large "one author only" bar is vocabulary specific to a single author (you only need it for that author); the tiny "shared by all" bar is words every author uses yet that aren't in the introductory core — the highest-value words to learn next. The middle bands are the next-best targets. Greek's tail is far larger than Latin's because its authors span more dialects and genres.