Mo ção de apoio à correspondência do Hein van der V oort à SSILA

Maria Odileiz Sousa Cruz odileiz at MANDIC.COM.BR
Wed Aug 30 13:43:16 UTC 2006


Caros membros da lista.

Manifesto solidariedade ao posicionamento do Dr. Hein van der Voort, bem como
concordo com a sugestão do texto apresentado pelo Dr. Sebastian Drude para a
Abralin (via Dr. Gabas). Porém, lembro que o problema em discussão advém de
questões anteriores que não foram exauridas. Portanto, o tema é complexo
merecendo novas reflexões e atitudes por partes dos que fazem ciência com
responsabilidade social.

Cordiais saudações

Odileiz Cruz
(Universidade Federal de Roraima)


---- Mensagem Original ----
From: "Nilson Gabas Junior" <gabas at nautilus.com.br>
To: etnolinguistica at yahoogrupos.com.br
Sent: Ter, Agosto 29, 2006 7:22 pm
Subject: [etnolinguistica] Moção de apoio à correspondência do Hein van der
Voort à SSILA

Prezados membros desta lista,

Gostaria de agradecer o apoio manifestado por membros desta lista e
por emails recebidos em caráter particular, em relação à proposta de
envio de uma moção à Abralin, sobre a correspondência do pesquisador
Hein van der Voort publicada recentemente no Boletim da SSILA.

Apresento, assim, abaixo, um texto largamente baseado no conteúdo do
texto apresentado pelo Dr. Sebastian Drude, para apreciação dos
membros e comentários.

Informo que é minha intenção enviar o texto à Abralin na próxima
sexta-feira, 1 de setembro. Assim, contribuições deverão ser feitas
até esta data, preferencialmente.

Cordialmente,
Gabas Jr.

The Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, a research institution of the
Ministry of Science and Technology, subscribed by several linguists
and leaders of Indian organizations of Brazil through the electronic
discussion list "Etnolinguistica", want to express our concern
regarding the points that were raised by Dr. Hein van der Voort
in the SSILA-Bulletin number 242 of August 22 of 2006, and
show our support for the general position taken by Dr. van der
Voort (full text is given below).

Basically, Dr. van der Voort states that a decision to adopt the
Ethnologue's language codes as the reference standard for the
languages of the world (also called ISO 639-3) was not fully
discussed within the linguistic community. He also questions the
validity of this decision based in ethics (should a religious
organization be in charge of such effort?) and accuracy
(Ethnologue is a faulty, although extensive publication).

He also proposes efforts like UNESCO's Redbook of the
Endangered Languages of the World to be considered in the
discussion an alternative to SIL's Ethnologue.

In particular, we feel that there is only one sensitive answer --
"NO"-- to the central question raised by Dr. van der Voort,
namely: "should we as scientists collaborate so directly with a
proselytizing organization, lending it legitimacy and potentially
contributing to its ultimate goal -- that of replacing indigenous
cultures with a specific Western one?"

Therefore, we request that the current state of affairs with respect
to the ISO 639-3 be reviewed, and that another, purely academic
institution (possibly a committee or commission to be created) be
responsible for maintaining and revising the ISO list of languages
and their codes. The academic commission of the SSILA assigned to
evaluate proposals for changes of the survey of South America may
serve as an example for other regions, and some coordination of
regional commissions could be established in order to assure similar
criteria and standards.

It would be certainly a time-consuming project, but the final
product will be also a more reliable and sensible one.

Thus, it seems important for us that the ISO 639-3 standard and a
possible permanent ISO 639-3 commission be clearly separated from
the Ethnologue and the SIL in general, making it possible for any
linguist to contribute to the ISO standard without contributing
direct or indirectly to the SIL.

With this motion, it is our intention to invite linguists who share
our view to make this position clear in their local academic
associations and to start a worldwide discussion about a possible
different solution for the ISO 639-3.

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Nilson Gabas, Jr.
Research and Graduate Coordinator
MCT-Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas

               *** SSILA BULLETIN ***

       An Information Service for SSILA Members

         Editor - Victor Golla  (golla at ssila.org)
Associate Editor - Scott DeLancey  (delancey at uoregon.edu)

-->>  --Correspondence should be directed to the Editor--  <<--
_____________________________________________________________________
                           Number 242:  August 22, 2006

---------------------------------------------------------------------
242.1  Correspondence
---------------------------------------------------------------------

* Problems with the Ethnologue
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>>From Hein van der Voort (hvoort at xs4all.nl)
25 July 2006:

Last year the International Standardization Organization
(ISO) decided to adopt the Ethnologue's language codes
as the reference standard for the languages of the world,
called ISO 639-3. The responsibility for setting up the
standard was in fact given to the Summer Institute of
Linguistics (SIL) (see SSILA Bulletin #227, 16 August
2005, and SSILA Newsletter, April 2006, p.16). This
decision was not discussed with the wider linguistic community.

Why should a missionary organization like SIL be given
the control of the universal standard for linguistic reference?

One reason is the fact that SIL has developed the
Ethnologue, which is a highly useful reference tool.
The good thing about the Ethnologue is that it represents
the most complete survey of the languages of the world
that exists today.

However, the Ethnologue is filled with errors, at least
as far as South America is concerned. With regard to the
50 languages of the region where I work, the Guaporé
region of Bolivia and Brazil, these errors include
languages being represented as dialects, dialects
represented as languages, languages attributed to the
wrong family or stock, living languages declared dead,
languages omitted entirely, and countless alternative
names applied incorrectly or to more than one language.

SIL has, indeed, set up a procedure to correct and improve
the information that forms the basis for the ISO standard.
Linguists with documentable knowledge have been invited
to submit their corrections on special forms that are to be
evaluated for the Americas by an independent committee
of SSILA members. This procedure will also improve the
quality of the data contained in the Ethnologue. But why
is the existing information in the Ethnologue not subjected
to the same scrutiny as the corrections that will be submitted
to the SSILA committee?

There are alternatives to the Ethnologue, in particular the
ideologically neutral UNESCO website in Tokyo for the
Red Book of Endangered Languages ( http://www.tooyoo.l.u-
tokyo.ac.jp/Redbook/SAmerica/SA_index.cgi ).
Granted, the Red Book's database is still not complete (the
important sections on Brazil and North America are not yet
activated). But at least the information it does contain is
reliable and comprehensive, and it deserves to be developed.

Perhaps another reason SIL was chosen is because the ISO
Institute was not aware of any of these issues, since it is not
specialized with regard to language and linguistics. They
seem to have handed over the controls to the first
organization that was pointed out to them. I can't recall any
preceding discussion of this ISO decision at all.

The central issue I raise here is an ethical one: should we as
scientists collaborate so directly with a proselytizing
organization, lending it legitimacy and potentially
contributing to its ultimate goal -- that of replacing
indigenous cultures with a specific Western one?










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-------------------------------------------------------------
IV Encontro da Associação Brasileira de Estudos Crioulos e Similares
Goiânia, 18 a 20 de outubro de 2006
Participe! Para maiores informações, visite
http://www.letras.ufg.br/abecs.html
-------------------------------------------------------------

O uso dos recursos do grupo Etnolingüística baseia-se no reconhecimento e aceitação de suas diretrizes. Para conhecê-las, visite http://geocities.com/linguasindigenas/normas  
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