Glottopedia, the free online encyclopedia of linguistics

Fri Jan 25 18:28:12 UTC 2008

Dear Martin,

Glottopedia does not exist yet. You have to admit that.
It is less than a project at the very moment.
Elisabeth Leiss

> 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
>

Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Leiss
Lehrstuhl für Germanistische Linguistik
Department für Germanistik, Komparatistik und Nordistik, Deutsch als
Fremdsprache
LMU München
Schellingstraße 3/RG
80799 München
Tel.: +49 (0)89 2180 2339 (Büro)
Tel.: +49 (0)89 2180 5744 (Sekr.: Frau Burauen)
Tel.: +49 (0)89 769 969 23 (priv.)
http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~GL/Leiss

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