[Corpora-List] Hierarchy of language taxons in corpora

[Yuri Tambovtsev]

Dear Corpora colleagues, it is very important to keeep to the correct language taxon hierarchy in corpora of different sorts. Please, inform me what language taxon hierarchy do you advise me to keep to? 
   In my opinion hierarchy of the language subgroups, groups, families and other language taxons is one of the most global, central, important and leading in linguistics. However, linguistics journals do not bother to publish the articles on this burning question.This is why, I'd like to ask you to share with me your opinion on the hierarchy of the language taxons. Or may be, you know a journal which could publish my article on the most global, central, important and leading problem of linguistics? That is the burden of the upper class journal. I noticed that monor and special linguistic journals do not bother to publish articles on general problems of linguistics. In my opinion, we should discuss the most general and 
burning linguistic issues online. There are some problems which can only be solved and are to be 
solved by the community of world linguists. It could be done with the help of a discussion online or in some linguistic journal. 
   I think that linguistics lacks a strict, proper and unambiguous 
definition of the hierarchy of the sets of languages, which are 
usually called language branches, subgroups, groups and families. In other words, linguistics lacks 
the establishment of the strict, proper and unanimously accepted 
ordered series of language taxons. In my mind, this series hierarchy 
should begin with the smallest language taxon (like "a branch of 
languages") and the biggest one (like "a community of languages"). 
Thus, we can propose to discuss in your journal the hierarchy of the 
language taxons. By the smallest language taxon we mean the 
language taxon, which includes the least number of languages. The 
languages in this taxon must be closely connected or related either 
genetically, or typologically. It is quite logical to begin with the 
notion of a branch since it is the smallest language taxon. Actually, 
the smallest is the tightest and the most compact language taxon. 
Therefore, the biggest language taxon ("community of languages") 
may be the loosest or the least compact one.
   In fact, we propose to define the following ordered series:
branch;
subgroup;
group;
family;
unity;
phylum;
union;
community.
Let us see how interested the world linguists are in establishing good 
order in linguistics. Are there any volunteers to discuss the hierarchy 
of language taxons? If so, please, share your opinions with us 
sending your e-mails to yutamb at hotmail.com Remain yours most sincerely 
Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk Pedagogical University, 
Novosibirsk, Russia
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