Ethnologue & counting citizens

[Aurolyn Luykx]

Hi Anthea,
just a note on your last message, re Ethnologue:

> My own feeling is to concentrate on citizens, but to
> give all citizens equal treatment, regardless of
where their ancestors came from.

Keep in mind that definitions of citizenship vary
widely -- in some countries, just being born there is
not enough. I recall during the first Gulf War, for
example, hearing Kuwait praised for the high per
capita income of its citizenry -- without mention of
the fact that most Kuwaitis are not "citizens" (that
designation being reserved for people with some
connection to the royal family).
Disclaimer: I have no direct knowledge about Kuwait;
the above info is what I gleaned from secondary
sources. If someone knows better, please correct me.
Aurolyn
>
> Anthea
>
> *     *     *     *     *
> Anthea Fraser Gupta (Dr)
> School of English, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
> <www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg>
> NB: Reply to a.f.gupta at leeds.ac.uk
> *     *     *     *     *
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
> > [mailto:owner-lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu] On
> Behalf Of
> > Harold F. Schiffman
> > Sent: 22 March 2005 13:56
> > To: lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
> > Subject: Re: facts, Stegemann and Gupta
> >
> >
> > Dear Paul,
> >
> > I'm glad to see that it's possible to update and
> correct some
> > of the listings in Ethnologue.  I just did a check
> on
> > Malaysia, to see what it says, and the following
> statement I
> > find a little strange:
> >
> > 	"Languages of Malaysia
> >
> > 	[See also SIL publications on the languages of
> Malaysia.]
> >
> >         National or official language: Malay.
> 21,410,000
> > (1998 UN). Also
> > 	includes Burmese, Western Cham, Chinese Sign
> Language,
> > Malayalam 37,000,
> > 	Eastern Panjabi 43,000, Telugu 30,000, people
> from
> > Indonesia, Pakistan,
> > 	the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United
> Kingdom.
> > Information mainly
> > 	from S. Wurm and S. Hattori 1981. Deaf population
>
> > 31,000 (1980). Deaf
> > 	institutions: 5. Data accuracy estimate: B, C.
> The
> > number of languages
> > 	listed for Malaysia is 140. Of those, 139 are
> living
> > languages and 1 is
> > 	extinct. Diversity index 0.75."
> >
> >
> > This is fine as far as it goes, but it lists small
> Indian
> > language populations like Malayalam and Telugu,
> but fails to
> > mention the over a million Tamil speakers.  True,
> the next
> > page does mention the 1,060,000 Tamil speakers [or
> people of
> > Tamil descent who declare it as their 'mother
> tongue'], but
> > it seems strange that Eastern Panjabi and Telugu
> get more
> > attention than the dominant Indian language. Then,
> on the
> > next page (Peninsular Malaysia) it does go into
> further
> > detail but then ignores Panjabi and Telugu etc.
> Is this
> > deliberate, or an oversight?
> >
> > Hal Schiffman
>
>



		
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