Glottopedia, the free online encyclopedia of linguistics

[Martin Haspelmath]

The answer is simple: Wikipedia and Wiktionary are intended as reference 
works for lay people, whereas Glottopedia is intended as a reference 
work for specialists. The two groups of people clearly have different 
needs. I certainly wouldn't profit from Wikipedia articles written by 
physicists that discuss recent issues in solid-state physics, so I'm 
glad that Wikipedia articles are written for people like me.

Given its goals, Wikipedia has to limit its scope: In the category of 
biographical articles, for instance, it admits only articles about 
"notable" people. Glottopedia has no such constraints: It can have 
articles about all linguists, including e.g. all those forgotten 
speaker-linguists that have made such an enormous contribution to our 
field but are not even known to most linguists because they don't show 
up at conferences and rarely get their names on publications (often 
they're called "informants").

So although Wikipedia's scope is breathtaking and its success is 
phenomenal, there is a need for reference information beyond Wikipedia. 
Ideally, we'd have a resource where I can get a complete list of 
references published on a given (smaller) language, or by a given 
linguist, or a complete list of all BLS conferences with the conference 
program, etc., and it is quite possible that such a resource can be 
achieved by the combined efforts of linguists.

Martin Haspelmath

Peter Hook wrote:
> Dear All,
>  
> This proposal seems to turn its back on the universality 
> and interdependency of human knowledge. No discipline is an island. 
> Linguistics (or at least some linguists) prides itself on being a 
> "window on the mind" and a bridge to a dozen other fields (philosophy, 
> logic, psychology, rhetoric, communication, sociology, cryptology, 
> anthropology, cultural studies, semiotics, education, language 
> learning...) Why can't the intellectual investments requested be made 
> to Wikipedia?  Or Wiktionary?  Or at least be shared with Wikipedia 
> and Wiktionary? 
>  
> Sincerely,  Peter Hook 
>
>  
> On 1/25/08, *Martin Haspelmath* <haspelmath at eva.mpg.de 
> <mailto:haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>> wrote:
>
>     Dear HistLingers,
>
>     You may be interested in Glottopedia (http://www.glottopedia.org), the
>     free reference site for linguists by linguists.
>
>     Glottopedia differs from Wikipedia in that (i) its content is much
>     more
>     specialized (e.g. you'll be able to find articles on items such as
>     "cryptanalysis", "syntacticization", "xenism", "rich agreement", "loan
>     translation", "adfix"), and (ii) users must have an account to edit
>     articles, and they must be linguists with an academic background.
>
>     Moreover, Glottopedia focuses on *dictionary articles* rather than
>     survey articles of the sort that are found in Wikipedia (and various
>     specialized linguistics handbooks). But each dictionary article
>     (protentially) provides more information than just a definition:
>     It also
>     gives examples, synonyms, other meanings of the term, the origin
>     of the
>     term, some key references, and a translation into other languages
>     (Glottopedia is a multilingual enterprise; so far there are
>     articles in
>     English and German, but it is hoped that more languages will
>     follow soon).
>
>     Glottopedia also has articles on linguists, but unlike Wikipedia,
>     which
>     aims to restrict its articles to "notable people", Glottopedia
>     potentially has articles on all linguists. (However, Glottopedia's
>     articles on living linguists are restricted to links, in order to
>     avoid
>     problems of personality rights.)
>
>     Eventually we also want to add articles about all languages and
>     language
>     families (with detailed references), and articles about things that we
>     need for our everyday work (such as journals, conferences,
>     institutions), but at the moment this is mainly an idea for the
>     future.
>
>     We feel that Glottopedia is a resource that the field of linguistics
>     really needs, and we hope that you will all contribute to it. Some
>     of us
>     have taught courses in which the assignment to the students was
>     writing
>     dictionary articles on some technical terms. We think that especially
>     advanced students, who do not have easy access to other forms of
>     publications, will find that Glottopedia gives them a great chance to
>     make a contribution to the field.
>
>     Martin Haspelmath
>
>     --
>     Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de
>     <mailto:haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>)
>     Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher
>     Platz 6
>     D-04103 Leipzig
>     Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616
>
>     Glottopedia - the free encyclopedia of linguistics
>     (http://www.glottopedia.org)
>
>
>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Histling-l mailing list
>     Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu <mailto:Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu>
>     https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l
>
>


-- 
Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de)
Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6	
D-04103 Leipzig      
Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616

Glottopedia - the free encyclopedia of linguistics
(http://www.glottopedia.org)





_______________________________________________
Histling-l mailing list
Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu
https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l