Naturally, after adding 50 new glosses to the database I’ve run across a new one that I’d like to add: chalk. Chuvash has пурӑ, пур, Kazakh and Kymyk have бор…
Wiktionary suggests that the Kazakh for comes from Russian бор “boron”, but this is clearly conflating the boron meaning with the chalk meaning. Fedotov says this is a native Turkic term and ties it to Sakha буор “earth, clay”. (Tuvan has пор and Tòfa has бор for clay as well). In Bashkir, the form is either бур or аҡбур, suggesting that the original term may have referred to crumbly stone or soil, with color terms used to distinguish between chalk, clay, etc.
I’ve entered forms for the latest 50 glosses for Turkish, Tuvan, Dzhungar Tuvan, Sakha, and Chuvash, and I’m working on Azerbaijani. Once I’ve made my rounds, I may add chalk to the database, plus whatever else I find.
As you can see above, there are a lot of cases where it could be useful to suggest related terms. Knowing that chalk is related to earth and clay could be beneficial. I may work on this in the near future as well.