OBO - Bencie Woll & Verena Krausneker

Thu Nov 13 18:16:28 UTC 2008

I'm am delighted to see this initiative taking place, and I hope many people will do as Verena has suggested.  

I am an SIL member who is deeply aware of the limitations in the Ethnologue (some of it based unfortunately on published information that is 20-30 years old), and who has been trying to correct these entries as I become aware of problems.  But, there is only so much that one person can do.  Knowing the Ethnologue staff, I know *they* want to improve the entries also, but can't do so unless people who know the information submit it.  I keep hearing of reports like the one below, where people have tried to correct the information but somehow the change hasn't been made, and that bothers me (as I'm sure it bothers the Ethnologue staff).  I don't know why the messages aren't getting through, and although I can't speak officially for the Ethnologue or for SIL, let me at least offer my personal apology for the frustration this has caused.  We need to work together to get communication flowing more effectively.

I have, a couple times in the past made requests on this list for people to provide information to improve the Ethnologue entries.  I have passed on these changes to the Ethnologue, and they will appear in the 2009 edition.  But, overall, the response has been pretty small, and that has been somewhat discouraging to me.  I do hope that the appeal below will generate more information, and I applaud Bencie and Verena for taking the initiative to gather the information together.

I'd also encourage people to communicate directly to the Ethnologue editors at editor_ethnologue at sil.org, who are Paul Lewis and Conrad Hurd. I'm copying this message to them so that they know this initiative is underway.

Part of the frustration people feel may be a result of the fact that the Ethnologue website is only updated once every four years, when a new print version is prepared.  Any information that people have submitted since the cutoff date for preparing the 2005 edition will not be reflected on the website until the 2009 edition comes out (it is currently in preparation).  Several of us in SIL have urged the Ethnologue staff to update the website more frequently, but so far they haven't had enough people to be able to do so.

Another thing that sometimes bothers people is the three-letter codes from the ISO 639-3 standard that are used to identify each language.  Many of these are different from the customary abbreviations used for sign languages; for example, the code for ASL is "ase".  These 3-letter codes are not meant to coincide with the standard abbreviations for sign languages; sometimes there is a resemblance, but due to the requirement that they must be unique, they are often different.  Standard abbreviated names such as ASL, BSL, DGS, etc., can be listed in the Ethnologue as alternative names for a language.

Please do as Verena asks!  Take the few minutes to check the Ethnologue entries for sign languages that you know something about, and submit corrections, either through Verena or directly to the Ethnologue; I'd suggest doing both.

Albert Bickford
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Paul Cowley 
  To: SLLING-L 
  Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2008 5:18 AM
  Subject: [SLLING-L] OBO - Bencie Woll & Verena Krausneker

  Dear collegues,

  The biggest resource on languages on the web - ethnologue, http:// www.ethnologue.com/ - unfortunately contains some totally outdated information on national sign languages - in some cases even serious errors. My efforts over the past years to convince ethnologue that they must check and correct  the entries on SLs have had no effect.

  So I think we should take action. Together with Bencie Woll I have come up with the following plan:

  We will collect a list of errors to support our point.

  We will contact ethnologue with that list and provide contact persons that they can use as ressources.

  For this we need your help:

  Please be so kind and take 5-10 Minutes.

  1. Find the Sign Language that you are expert for: http://

  www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90008

  2. Read the short info provided.

  3. Send an email to ME DIRECTLY  (verena.krausneker at univie.ac.at) with the following info:

  - Name of sign language in Ethnologue that you checked.

  - Other names and abbreviation used for that sign language.

  - Major errors in the entry (and if you wish further comments on the entry).

  - Name and email address of one appropriate contact person for that SL.

  thank you very much,

  verena krausneker

  (Dept. of Linguistics, University of Vienna)

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