Moção de apoio à correspondência do Hein van der Voort à SSILA

Tue Aug 29 22:22:33 UTC 2006

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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