Workshop: Towards a Comprehensive Language Catalogue

[Martin Haspelmath]

Towards a Comprehensive Language Catalogue

One-day workshop at the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, 28 
June 2008
(organized by Martin Haspelmath)
http://email.eva.mpg.de/~haspelmt/cat.html

At this informal workshop, we want to discuss ways in which linguists 
can collaborate towards the ambitious goal of creating a Comprehensive 
Language Catalogue. At the moment, all available language catalogues 
(such as Ruhlen 1987, Mosely & Asher 1994, Gordon 2005) are limited in 
the amount and quality of information on the world's languages that they 
provide.

There seems to be general agreement that it would be desirable to have a 
language catalogue that provides at least the following types of 
information:

* geographical information: ideally for each language we would know not 
just roughly where it is spoken (in terms of a single central point or a 
vague polygon), but we would have detailed information on all the 
settlements where its speakers live

* genealogical information: ideally we would like to know not only what 
the current majority view on genealogical trees is, but also what 
alternative proposals there are and what evidence and criteria both the 
majority view and alternative theories are based on in detail

* bibliographical information: ideally we would like to have a complete 
list of bibliographical  references for all the lesser-known languages

* glossonymic information: ideally we would like to have comprehensive 
information on language names, which for each name explains its domain 
of use and its origin (as far as this is known); ideally such a list of 
language names would be multilingual

* sociological information: ideally for each language we would know at 
least an estimate of how many speakers there are and, if relevant, an 
estimate of the degree to which the language is endangered.

*historical information: for many languages, we also have diachronic 
information on all of the above aspects, and this should also be 
integrated into a database.

At this workshop, we will discuss the specifics of the field's 
desiderata and possible ways of moving closer to achieving them.

(Note that this workshop is held just after a meeting on a related 
topic, Wikifying Research 
(http://email.eva.mpg.de/%7Ecysouw/meetings/wikifying.html.)

Participants (minimal list):

Peter Austin (SOAS London)
Anthony Aristar (Eastern Michigan University/LINGUIST List)
Balthasar Bickel (University of Leipzig)
William Croft (University of New Mexico)
Michael Cysouw (MPI-EVA Leipzig)
Östen Dahl (Stockholm University)
Jeff Good (University at Buffalo)
Martin Haspelmath (MPI-EVA Leipzig)
Jean-Marie Hombert (University of Lyon 2)
Christian Lehmann (University of Erfurt)
Ljuba Veselinova (Stockholm University)

Anyone who is interested is welcome to attend the workshop (just contact 
Martin Haspelmath). There will be some short presentations, but mostly 
the workshop will consist of informal discussions.

-- 
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