Ethnologue
Type of business | Non-profit organization |
---|---|
Type of site | Language database |
Available in | English |
Founded | 1951 |
Headquarters | , United States |
Owner | SIL International, United States |
Founder(s) | Richard S. Pittman |
Editors |
|
URL | www |
Commercial | Yes |
Registration | Required to access most content since 2019[1] |
ISSN | 1946-9675 |
OCLC number | 43349556 |
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the
Overview and content
Ethnologue has been published by SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics), a Christian linguistic service organization with an international office in Dallas, Texas. The organization studies numerous minority languages to facilitate language development, and to work with speakers of such language communities in translating portions of the Bible into their languages.[3] Despite the Christian orientation of its publisher, Ethnologue is not ideologically or theologically biased.[4]
Ethnologue includes alternative names and
Ethnologue gathers information from SIL's thousands of field linguists,[1] surveys done by linguists and literacy specialists, observations of Bible translators, and crowdsourced contributions.[6][10] SIL's field linguists use an online collaborative research system to review current data, update it, or request its removal.[11] SIL has a team of editors by geographical area who prepare reports to Ethnologue's general editor. These reports combine opinions from SIL area experts and feedback solicited from non-SIL linguists. Editors have to find compromises when opinions differ.[12] Most of SIL's linguists have taken three to four semesters of graduate linguistics courses, and half of them have a master's degree. They're trained by 300 PhD linguists in SIL.[13]
The determination of what characteristics define a single language depends upon sociolinguistic evaluation by various scholars; as the preface to Ethnologue states, "Not all scholars share the same set of criteria for what constitutes a 'language' and what features define a 'dialect'."[5] The criteria used by Ethnologue are mutual intelligibility and the existence or absence of a common literature or ethnolinguistic identity.[5][12][14] The number of languages identified has been steadily increasing, from 5,445 in the 10th edition (in 1984) to 6,909 in the 16th (in 2009), partly due to governments according designation as languages to mutually intelligible varieties and partly due to SIL establishing new Bible translation teams.[15] Ethnologue codes were used as the base to create the new ISO 639-3 international standard. Since 2007, Ethnologue relies only on this standard, administered by SIL International,[16] to determine what is listed as a language.[5]
In addition to choosing a primary name for a language, Ethnologue provides listings of other name(s) for the language and any dialects that are used by its speakers, government, foreigners and neighbors. Also included are any names that have been commonly referenced historically, regardless of whether a name is considered official, politically correct or offensive; this allows more complete historic research to be done. These lists of names are not necessarily complete.
History
Ethnologue was founded in 1951 by Richard S. Pittman and was initially focused on minority languages, to share information on Bible translation needs.[17][18] The first edition included information on 46 languages.[18][17] Hand-drawn maps were introduced in the fourth edition (1953).[18] The seventh edition (1969) listed 4,493 languages.[18][17] In 1971, Ethnologue expanded its coverage to all known languages of the world.[18][17]
Ethnologue database was created in 1971 at the University of Oklahoma under a grant from the National Science Foundation.[18] In 1974 the database was moved to Cornell University.[18][17] Since 2000, the database has been maintained by SIL International in their Dallas headquarters.[18][17] In 1997 (13th edition), the website became the primary means of access.[18][17]
In 1984, Ethnologue released a three-letter coding system, called an 'SIL code', to identify each language that it described. This set of codes significantly exceeded the scope of other existing standards, e.g. ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2.[19][18][17]
The 14th edition, published in 2000, included 7,148 language codes. In 2002, Ethnologue was asked to work with the
, whereas Ethnologue considers Twi and Fante to be dialects of a single language (Akan), since they are mutually intelligible. This anomaly resulted because the ISO 639-2 standard has separate codes for Twi and Fante, which have separate literary traditions, and all 639-2 codes for individual languages are automatically part of 639-3, even though 639-3 would not normally assign them separate codes.In 2014, with the 17th edition, Ethnologue introduced a numerical code for language status using a framework called
In 2015, SIL's funds decreased and in December 2015, Ethnologue launched a metered
In 2016, Ethnologue added date about language planning agencies to the 19th edition.[24]
As of 2017, Ethnologue's 20th edition described 237
The early focus of the Ethnologue was on native use (L1) but was gradually expanded to cover L2 use as well.[26]
In 2019, Ethnologue disabled trial views and introduced a
In 2020, the 23rd edition listed 7,117 living languages, an increase of 6 living languages from the 22nd edition. In this edition, Ethnologue expanded its coverage of
In 2021, the 24th edition had 7,139 modern languages, an increase of 22 living languages from the 23rd edition. Editors especially improved data about language shift in this edition.[33]
In 2022, the 25th edition listed a total of 7,151 living languages, an increase of 12 living languages from the 24th edition. This edition specifically improved the use of languages in education.[34]
In 2023, the 26th edition listed a total of 7,168 living languages, an increase of 17 living languages from the 25th edition.
In 2024, the 27th edition listed a total of 7,164 living languages, a decrease of 4 living languages from the 26th edition.[35]
Reception, reliability, and use
In 1986,
In a review of Ethnologue's 2009 edition in Ethnopolitics, Richard O. Collin, professor of politics, noted that "Ethnologue has become a standard resource for scholars in the other social sciences: anthropologists, economists, sociologists and, obviously, sociolinguists". According to Collin, Ethnologue is "stronger in languages spoken by indigenous peoples in economically less-developed portions of the world" and "when recent in-depth country-studies have been conducted, information can be very good; unfortunately [...] data are sometimes old".[4]
In 2012, linguist Asya Pereltsvaig described Ethnologue as "a reasonably good source of thorough and reliable geographical and demographic information about the world's languages".[41] She added in 2021 that its maps "are generally fairly accurate although they often depict the linguistic situation as it once was or as someone might imagine it to be but not as it actually is".[42] Linguist George Tucker Childs wrote in 2012 that: "Ethnologue is the most widely referenced source for information on languages of the world", but he added that regarding African languages, "when evaluated against recent field experience [Ethnologue] seems at least out of date".[43] In 2014, Ethnologue admitted that some of its data was out-of-date and switched from a four-year publication cycle (in print and online) to yearly online updates.[44]
In 2017,
The
In 2005, linguist
Editions
Starting with the 17th edition, Ethnologue has been published every year,[23] on February 21, which is International Mother Language Day.[32]
Edition | Date | Editor | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1[71] | 1951 | Richard S. Pittman | 10 mimeographed pages; 40 languages[3] |
2[72] | 1951 | Pittman | |
3[73] | 1952 | Pittman | |
4[74] | 1953 | Pittman | first to include maps[75] |
5[76] | 1958 | Pittman | first edition in book format |
6[77] | 1965 | Pittman | |
7[78] | 1969 | Pittman | 4,493 languages |
8[79] | 1974 | Barbara Grimes | [80] |
9[81] | 1978 | Grimes | |
10[82] | 1984 | Grimes | SIL codes first included |
11[83] | 1988 | Grimes | 6,253 languages[84] |
12[85] | 1992 | Grimes | 6,662 languages |
13[86][87] | 1996 | Grimes | 6,883 languages |
14[88] | 2000 | Grimes | 6,809 languages |
15[89] | 2005 | Raymond G. Gordon Jr.[90] | 6,912 languages; draft ISO standard; first edition to provide color maps[75] |
16[91] | 2009 | M. Paul Lewis | 6,909 languages |
17 | 2013, updated 2014[92] | M. Paul Lewis, Gary F. Simons and Charles D. Fennig | 7,106 living languages |
18 | 2015 | Lewis, Simons & Fennig | 7,102 living languages; 7,472 total |
19 | 2016 | Lewis, Simons & Fennig | 7,097 living languages |
20 | 2017 | Simons & Fennig | 7,099 living languages |
21[93] | 2018 | Simons & Fennig | 7,097 living languages |
22[94] | 2019 | Eberhard, David M., Simons & Fennig | 7,111 living languages |
23[95] | 2020 | Eberhard, Simons & Fennig | 7,117 living languages |
24[33] | 2021 | Eberhard, Simons & Fennig | 7,139 living languages |
25[34] | 2022 | Eberhard, Simons & Fennig | 7,151 living languages |
26[96] | 2023 | Eberhard, Simons & Fennig | 7,168 living languages |
27[35] | 2024 | Eberhard, Simons & Fennig | 7,164 living languages |
References
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- ^ a b Erard, Michael (July 19, 2005). "How Linguists and Missionaries Share a Bible of 6,912 Languages". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 7, 2014.
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{{cite book}}
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- ^ "[SIL05] 1958". Glottolog. Retrieved July 13, 2014.
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- ^ Barbara F. Grimes; Richard Saunders Pittman; Joseph Evans Grimes, eds. (1974). Ethnologue. Wycliffe Bible Translators. Retrieved July 13, 2014.
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