<div dir="ltr">Thank you Matthew, that's very well put and true.<div><br></div><div>I hope it does not come across that I do not appreciate their work and contribution to the field, it is as you say great and very meaningful. As an illustration: 2,694 references in Glottolog have "SIL" in the publishers's field. </div><div><br></div><div>As far as I know, it's not that common that christian researchers can carry out important academic work that also fulfils their spiritual goals. I think most of us would agree that there isn't enough funding to describe as many languages as we'd like, and that all that adds to this effort is good. Right?</div><div><br></div><div>The question, for me at least, is if SIL is necessarily the way to continue when it comes to a catalogue with language information and classification & codes. SIL, while being academic and doing much great academic work, does not have regular academic funding (as far as I know) and is therefore subject to running as a private business with sellable resources etc. When more and more regular academic publication is going open access, in particular in language documentation, this seems an unfortunate step backwards.</div><div><br></div><div>Either way, it seems like the initial confusion surrounding what Ethnologue's new pay-wall applies to is sorted. Personally, like I said before I've already moved on to using other resources for most of Ethnologue's functions so this will effect me less than it would have, say, 3 years ago.</div><div><br></div><div>/Hedvig</div><div><br></div><div>p.s. we now have two "threads" going on this so to speak, I hope no-one gets confused.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt"><b>Hedvig Skirgård</b><br>PhD Candidate<br><span style="color:rgb(196,89,17)">The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity</span><u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt">ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language</span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt">School of Culture, History and Language<br>College of Asia and the Pacific<u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt">Rm 4203, H.C. Coombs Building (#9)<br>The Australian National University<u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt">Acton ACT 2601<u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt">Australia<br><br>Ph: +61 (0)451 878 060<u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:9pt">E: <a href="mailto:hedvig.skirgard@anu.edu.au" target="_blank">hedvig.skirgard@anu.edu.au</a></span></p></div></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On 3 January 2016 at 07:17, Matthew Dryer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dryer@buffalo.edu" target="_blank">dryer@buffalo.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I think the discussion of SIL and Ethnologue
a couple of
days ago rather oversimplifies things. The assumption is that
because they are
a missionary organization, they are not an academic
organization. The fact that
their primary mission is Bible translation does not change the
fact that many
people with SIL conduct scientific research. This is especially
true for those
members of SIL who hold positions at universities but it also
includes members
of SIL who do not hold university positions but who have PhD’s
in linguistics
and engage is scientific research. The interest these people
have in linguistic
research is no different from the interest that non-SIL
academics have in
linguistic research. Their interest in linguistics is simply
something that
runs in parallel to their religious beliefs and their interest
in Bible
translation. It is clear that Kenneth Pike, who was president of
SIL from 1942
to 1979, considered one of the major goals of SIL to be language
description as
an end in itself. It is for that reason that SIL is both a
missionary
organization and an academic organization.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While Dan is right about the origin and
impetus for
Ethnologue within SIL, it is clear that the primary motivation
for those who
have been most involved in Ethnologue is scientific. SIL has had
a crucial role
in the assignment of ISO codes because it is an academic
organization.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We typologists owe an immense debt to SIL,
for there is no
academic institution or organization that has produced more than
a fraction of
the language description that has been produced by SIL (except,
perhaps,
Australian National University), something that is crucial for
typologists
whose work relies on language descriptions.<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><u></u><u></u></font></span></p><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Matthew<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</font></span></div>
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