The natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) is a linguistic theory that reduces lexicons down to a set of semantic primitives. It is based on the conception of Polish professor Andrzej Bogusławski. The theory was formally developed by Anna Wierzbicka at Warsaw University and later at the Australian National University in the early 1970s, and Cliff Goddard at Australia's Griffith University. Approach The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory attempts to reduce the semantics of all lexicons down to a restricted set of semantic primitives, or primes. Primes are universal in that they have the same translation in every language, and they are primitive in that they cannot be defined using other words. Primes are ordered together to form explications, which are descriptions of semantic representations consisting solely of primes. Research in the NSM approach deals extensively with language and cognition, and language and culture. Key areas of research include lexical semantics, grammatical semantics, phraseology and pragmatics, as well as cross-cultural communication. Dozens of languages, including representatives of 16 language groups, have been studied using the NSM framework. They include English, Russian, Polish, French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Malay, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Ewe, Wolof, East Cree, Koromu, at least 16 Australian languages, and a number of creole languages including Trinidadian creole, Roper River Kriol, Bislama and Tok Pisin. Apart from the originators Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard, a number of other scholars have participated in NSM semantics, most notably Bert Peeters, Zhengdao Ye, Felix Ameka, Jean Harkins, Marie-Odile Junker, Anna Gladkova, Jock Wong, Carsten Levisen, Helen Bromhead, Adrian Tien, Carol Priestley, Yuko Asano-Cavanagh and Gian Marco Farese. Semantic primes Semantic primes (also known as semantic primitives) are concepts that are universal, meaning that they can be translated literally into any known language and retain their semantic representation, and primitive, as they are proposed to be the most simple linguistic concepts and are unable to be defined using simpler terms. Proponents of the NSM theory argue that every language shares a core vocabulary of concepts. In 1994 and 2002, Goddard and Wierzbicka studied languages across the globe and found strong evidence supporting this argument. Wierzbicka's 1972 study proposed 14 semantic primes. That number was expanded to 60 in 2002 by Wierzbicka and Goddard, and the current agreed-upon number is 65. Each language's translations of the semantic primes are called exponents. Below is a list of English exponents, or the English translation of the