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''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It was first issued in 1951, and is now published by SIL International, an American Christian non-profit organization.


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 Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...
, 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. Despite the Christian orientation of its publisher, ''Ethnologue'' isn't ideologically or theologically biased. ''Ethnologue'' includes alternative names and autonyms, the number of L1 and L2 speakers, language prestige, domains of use, literacy rates, locations, dialects, language classification, linguistic affiliations, typology, language maps, country maps, publication and use in media, availability of the
Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...
in each language and dialect described, religious affiliations of speakers, a cursory description of revitalization efforts where reported, intelligibility and
lexical similarity In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. A lexical similarity of 1 (or 100%) would mean a total overlap between vocabularies, whereas 0 means there are no common words. ...
with other dialects and languages, writing scripts, an estimate of language viability using the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS), and bibliographic resources. Coverage varies depending on languages. For instance, as of 2008, information on
word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
was present for 15% of entries while religious affiliations were mentioned for 38% of languages. According to Lyle Campbell "language maps are highly valuable" and most country maps are of high quality and user-friendly. ''Ethnologue'' gathers information from SIL's thousands of field linguists, surveys done by linguists and literacy specialists, observations of Bible translators, and
crowdsourced Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...
contributions. SIL's field linguists use an online collaborative research system to review current data, update it, or request its removal. 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. 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. 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 The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
'." ''Ethnologue'' historically followed general linguistic criteria, which are based primarily on
mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as ...
. Shared language intelligibility features are complex, and usually include etymological and grammatical evidence that is agreed upon by experts. ''Ethnologue'' codes were used as the base to create the new
ISO 639-3 ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for ...
international standard. Since 2007, ''Ethnologue'' relies only rely on this standard, administered by SIL International, to determine what is listed as a language. Criteria used to be defined as a language are and mutual intelligibility and the existence or absence of a common literature or ethnolinguistic identity. 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. The first edition included information on 46 languages. Hand-drawn maps were introduced in the fourth edition (1953). The seventh edition (1969) listed 4,493 languages. In 1971, ''Ethnologue'' expanded its coverage to all known languages of the world. ''Ethnologue'' database was created in 1971 at the University of Oklahoma under a grant from the
National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
. In 1974 the database was moved to
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
. Since 2000, the database has been maintained by SIL International in their Dallas headquarters. In 1997 (13th edition), the website became the primary means of access. 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 ISO 639- 2:1998, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code'', is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. The three-letter codes given for ea ...
. The 14th edition, published in 2000, included 7,148 language codes. In 2002, ''Ethnologue'' was asked to work with the
International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in A ...
(ISO) to integrate its codes into a draft international standard. ''Ethnologue'' codes have then been adopted by ISO as the international standard,
ISO 639-3 ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for ...
. The 15th edition of ''Ethnologue'' was the first edition to use this standard. This standard is now administered separately from Ethnologue. SIL International is the registration authority for languages names and codes, according to rules established by ISO. Since then ''Ethnologue'' relies on the standard to determine what is listed as a language. In only one case, ''Ethnologue'' and the ISO standards treat languages slightly differently. ISO 639-3 considers Akan to be a macrolanguage consisting of two distinct languages, Twi and Fante, 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 EGIDS (Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale), an elaboration of Fishman's GIDS (
Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale Joshua Fishman (Yiddish: שיקל פֿישמאַן — Shikl Fishman; July 18, 1926 – March 1, 2015) was an American linguist who specialized in the sociology of language, language planning, bilingual education, and language and ethnicity ...
). It ranks a language from 0 for an international language to 10 for an
extinct language An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, l ...
, i.e. a language with which no-one retains a sense of ethnic identity. In 2015, SIL's funds decreased and in December 2015, ''Ethnologue'' launched a metered paywall to cover its cost, as it is financially self-sustaining. Users in
high-income countries A high-income economy is defined by the World Bank as a nation with a gross national income per capita of US$12,696 or more in 2020, calculated using the Atlas method. While the term "high-income" is often used interchangeably with "First World" a ...
who wanted to refer to more than seven pages of data per month had to buy a
paid subscription The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, and ...
. The 18th edition released that year included a new section on language policy country by country. In 2016, ''Ethnologue'' added date about
language planning In sociolinguistics, language planning (also known as language engineering) is a deliberate effort to influence the function, structure or acquisition of languages or language varieties within a speech community.Kaplan B., Robert, and Richa ...
agencies to the 19th edition. As of 2017, ''Ethnologue'''s 20th edition described 237 language families including 86 language isolates and six typological categories, namely sign languages, creoles, pidgins, mixed languages,
constructed language A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...
s, and as yet
unclassified languages An unclassified language is a language whose genetic affiliation to other languages has not been established. Languages can be unclassified for a variety of reasons, mostly due to a lack of reliable data but sometimes due to the confounding inf ...
. The early focus of the Ethnologue was on native use (L1) but was gradually expanded to cover L2 use as well. In 2019, ''Ethnologue'' disabled trial views and introduced a hard paywall to cover its nearly $1 million in annual operating costs (website maintenance, security, researchers, and SIL's 5,000 field linguists). Subscriptions start at $480 per person per year, while full access costs $2,400 per person per year. Users in
low and middle-income countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
as defined by the
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...
are eligible for free access. Subscribers are mostly institutions: 40% of the world's top 50 universities subscribe to ''Ethnologue'', and it is also sold to business intelligence firms and Fortune 500 companies. The introduction of the paywall was harshly criticized by the community of linguists who rely on ''Ethnologue'' to do their work and cannot afford the subscription The same year, ''Ethnologue'' launched its contributor program to fill gaps and improve accuracy, allowing contributors to submit corrections and additions and to get a complimentary access to the website. ''Ethnologue'''s editors gradually review crowdsourced contributions before publication. As 2019 was the
International Year of Indigenous Languages The International Year of Indigenous Languages was a United Nations observance in 2019 that aimed to raise awareness of the consequences of the endangerment of Indigenous languages across the world, with an aim to establish a link between langua ...
, this edition focused on language loss: it added the date when last fluent speaker of the language died, standardized the age range of language users, and improved the
EGIDS The Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS), developed by Lewis and Simons (2010), measures a language's status in terms of endangerment Endangerment is a type of crime involving conduct that is wrongful and reckless or wan ...
estimates. In 2020, the 23rd edition listed 7,117 living languages, an increase of 6. In this edition, ''Ethnologue'' expanded its coverage of
immigrant language Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...
s: previous editions only had full entries for languages considered to be "established" within a country. From this edition, ''Ethnologue'' includes data about first and second languages of refugees, temporary foreign workers and immigrants. In 2021, the 24th edition had 7,139 modern languages, an increase of 22. Editors especially improved data about
language shift Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are percei ...
in this edition. In 2022, the 25th edition listed a total of 7,151 living languages, an increase of 12 living languages from 24th edition. This edition specifically improved the use of languages in education.


Reception, reliability, and use

In 1986, William Bright, then editor of the journal ''
Language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
'', wrote of ''Ethnologue'' that it "is indispensable for any reference shelf on the languages of the world". The 2003 ''
International Encyclopedia of Linguistics International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...
'' described ''Ethnologue'' as "a comprehensive listing of the world's languages, with genetic classification", and follows Ethnologue's classification. In 2005, linguists Lindsay J. Whaley and
Lenore Grenoble Lenore A. Grenoble is an American linguist specializing in Slavic and Arctic Indigenous languages, currently the John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor and Chair at University of Chicago. Grenoble earned her Ph.D. in Slavic Lingu ...
considered that ''Ethnologue'' "continues to provide the most comprehensive and reliable count of numbers of speakers of the world's languages", still they recognize that "individual language surveys may have far more accurate counts for a specific language, but ''The Ethnologue'' is unique in bringing together speaker statistics on a global scale". In 2006, computational linguists John C. Paolillo and Anupam Das conducted a systematic evaluation of available information on language populations for the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. They reported that ''Ethnologue'' and
Linguasphere The Linguasphere Observatory (or "the Observatoire", based on its original French and legal title: ''Observatoire Linguistique'') is a non-profit transnational research network, devoted (alongside related programs) to the gathering, study, classi ...
were the only comprehensive sources of information about language populations and that ''Ethnologue'' had more specific information. They concluded that: "the language statistics available today in the form of the ''Ethnologue'' population counts are already good enough to be useful" According to linguist
William Poser William J. Poser is a Canadian-American linguist who is known for his extensive work with the historical linguistics of Native American languages, especially those of the Athabascan family. He got his B.A. from Harvard in 1979 and his Ph.D. fro ...
, ''Ethnologue'' was, as of 2006, the "best single source of information" on language classification. In 2008 linguists Lyle Campbell and Verónica Grondona highly commended ''Ethnologue'' in ''Language''. They described it as a highly valuable catalogue of the world's languages that "has become the standard reference" and whose "usefulness is hard to overestimate". They concluded that ''Ethnologue'' was "truly excellent, highly valuable, and the very best book of its sort available." In a review of ''Ethnologue'''s 2009 edition in '' Ethnopolitics'', Richard Oliver 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". In 2012, linguist
Asya Pereltsvaig Asya Pereltsvaig (russian: link=no, Ася Перельцвайг; born 1972) is a Russian-American linguist, writer, and educator. Pereltsvaig was born in Leningrad, USSR. Life Her research interests are theoretical syntax, cross-linguistic ...
described ''Ethnologue'' as "a reasonably good source of thorough and reliable geographical and demographic information about the world's languages". 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". 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 thnologueseems at least out of date". 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. In 2017, Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas described ''Ethnologue'' as "the most comprehensive global source list for (mostly oral) languages". According to the 2018 ''Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics'', ''Ethnologue'' is a "comprehensive, frequently updated atabaseon languages and language families'. According to
quantitative linguist Quantitative linguistics (QL) is a sub-discipline of general linguistics and, more specifically, of mathematical linguistics. Quantitative linguistics deals with language learning, language change, and application as well as structure of natural la ...
s
Simon Greenhill Simon James Greenhill is a New Zealand scientist who works on the application of quantitative methods to the study of cultural evolution and human prehistory. He is well known for creating and building various linguistics databases, including the ...
, ''Ethnologue'' offers, as of 2018, "sufficiently accurate reflections of speaker population size". Linguists Lyle Campbell and Kenneth Lee Rehg wrote in 2018 that ''Ethnologue'' was "the best source that list the non-endangered languages of the world". Lyle Campbell and Russell Barlow also noted that the 2017 edition of ''Ethnologue'' "improved tsclassification markedly". They note that ''Ethnologue'''s genealogy is similar to that of the
World Atlas of Language Structures The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural ( phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-R ...
(WALS) but different from that of the
Catalogue of Endangered Languages The Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat) is a major resource for information on the endangered languages of the world. It is available to the public via the Endangered Languages Projectbr>website Language information The Catalogue of Endange ...
(ELCat) and Glottolog. Linguist
Lisa Matthewson Lisa Christine Matthewson is Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at University of British Columbia with specialties in pragmatics and semantics. She has also done significant work with semantic fieldwork and in the preser ...
commented in 2020 that ''Ethnologue'' offers "accurate information about speaker numbers". In a 2021 review of ''Ethnologue'' and Glottolog, linguist
Shobhana Chelliah Shobhana Chelliah is Distinguished Professor of Linguistics and Associate Dean of Research and Advancement at the College of Information, University of North Texas.  Her research focuses on the documentation of the Tibeto-Burman languages of Nor ...
noted that "For better or worse, the impact of the site is indeed considerable. ..Clearly, the site has influence on the field of linguistics and beyond." She added that she, among other linguists, integrated ''Ethnologue'' in her linguistics classes." The '' Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'' uses ''Ethnologue'' as its primary source for the list of languages and language maps. According to linguist Suzanne Romaine, ''Ethnologue'' is also the leading source for research on language diversity. According to ''The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society'', ''Ethnologue'' is "the standard reference source for the listing and enumeration of Endangered Languages, and for all known and "living" languages of the world"." Similarly, linguist David Bradley describes ''Ethnologue'' as "the most comprehensive effort to document the level of endangerment in languages around the world." The US
National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
uses ''Ethnologue'' to determine which languages are endangered. According to Hammarström et al., ''Ethnologue'' is, as of 2022, one of the three global databases documenting language endangerment with the '' Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger'' and the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat). The University of Hawaii
Kaipuleohone Kaipuleohone is a digital ethnographic archive that houses audio and visual files, photographs, as well as hundreds of textual material such as notes, dictionaries, and transcriptions relating to small and endangered languages. The archive is stored ...
language archive uses ''Ethnologue'''s metadata as well. The ''
World Atlas of Language Structures The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural ( phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-R ...
'' uses ''Ethnologue'''s genealogical classification. The Rosetta Project uses ''Ethnologue'''s language metadata. In 2005, linguist Harald Hammarström wrote that ''Ethnologue'' was consistent with specialist views most of the time and was a catalog "of very high absolute value and by far the best of its kind". In 2011, Hammarström created Glottolog in response to the lack of a comprehensive language bibliography, especially in ''Ethnologue''. In 2015, Hammarström reviewed the 16th, 17th, and 18th editions of ''Ethnologue'' and described the frequent lack of citations as its only "serious fault" from a scientific perspective. He concluded: "''Ethnologue'' is at present still better than any other nonderivative work of the same scope. tis an impressively comprehensive catalogue of world languages, and it is far superior to anything else produced prior to 2009. In particular, it is superior by virtue of being explicit." According to Hammarström, as of 2016, ''Ethnologue'' and Glottolog are the only global-scale continually maintained inventories of the world's languages. The main difference is that ''Ethnologue'' includes additional information (such as speaker numbers or vitality) but lacks systematic sources for the information given. In contrast, Glottolog provides no language context information but points to primary sources for further data. Contrary to ''Ethnologue'', Glottolog doesn't run its own surveys, but it uses ''Ethnologue'' as one of its primary sources. As of 2019, Hammarström uses ''Ethnologue'' in his articles, noting that it "has (unsourced, but) detailed information associated with each speech variety, such as speaker numbers and map location". In response to feedback about the lack of references, ''Ethnologue'' added in 2013 a link on each language to language resources from the
Open Language Archives Community OLAC, the Open Language Archives Community, is an initiative to create a unified means of searching online databases of language resources for linguistic research. The information about resources is stored in XML Extensible Markup Language (X ...
(OLAC) ''Ethnologue'' acknowledges that it rarely quotes any source verbatim but cites sources wherever specific statements are directly attributed to them, and corrects missing attributions upon notification. The website provides a list of all of the references cited. In her 2021 review, Shobhana Chelliah noted that Glottolog aims to be better than ''Ethnologue'' in language classification and genetic and areal relationships by using linguists' original sources.


Editions

Starting with the 17th edition, ''Ethnologue'' has been published every year, on
February 21 Events Pre-1600 *452 or 453 – Severianus, Bishop of Scythopolis, is martyred in Palestine. * 1245 – Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland, is granted resignation after confessing to torture and forgery. *1440 – The Pru ...
, which is International Mother Language Day.


References


Bibliography

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External links

* {{Authority control 1951 non-fiction books 1952 non-fiction books 1953 non-fiction books 1958 non-fiction books 1965 non-fiction books 1969 non-fiction books 1974 non-fiction books 1978 non-fiction books 1984 non-fiction books 1988 non-fiction books 1992 non-fiction books 1996 non-fiction books 2000 non-fiction books 2005 non-fiction books 2009 non-fiction books 2013 non-fiction books Linguistics websites Academic works about linguistics * Linguistics databases SIL International books