[Lingtyp] Ethnologue goes for paid access?

[Hedvig Skirgård]

Thank you Matthew, that's very well put and true.

I hope it does not come across that I do not appreciate their work and
contribution to the field, it is as you say great and very meaningful. As
an illustration: 2,694 references in Glottolog have "SIL" in the
publishers's field.

As far as I know, it's not that common that christian researchers can carry
out important academic work that also fulfils their spiritual goals. I
think most of us would agree that there isn't enough funding to describe as
many languages as we'd like, and that all that adds to this effort is good.
Right?

The question, for me at least, is if SIL is necessarily the way to continue
when it comes to a catalogue with language information and classification &
codes. SIL, while being academic and doing much great academic work, does
not have regular academic funding (as far as I know) and is therefore
subject to running as a private business with sellable resources etc. When
more and more regular academic publication is going open access, in
particular in language documentation, this seems an unfortunate step
backwards.

Either way, it seems like the initial confusion surrounding what
Ethnologue's new pay-wall applies to is sorted. Personally, like I said
before I've already moved on to using other resources for most of
Ethnologue's functions so this will effect me less than it would have, say,
3 years ago.

/Hedvig

p.s. we now have two "threads" going on this so to speak, I hope no-one
gets confused.

*Hedvig Skirgård*
PhD Candidate
The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity

ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language

School of Culture, History and Language
College of Asia and the Pacific

Rm 4203, H.C. Coombs Building (#9)
The Australian National University

Acton ACT 2601

Australia

Ph: +61 (0)451 878 060

E: hedvig.skirgard at anu.edu.au

On 3 January 2016 at 07:17, Matthew Dryer <dryer at buffalo.edu> wrote:

>
>
> I think the discussion of SIL and Ethnologue a couple of days ago rather
> oversimplifies things. The assumption is that because they are a missionary
> organization, they are not an academic organization. The fact that their
> primary mission is Bible translation does not change the fact that many
> people with SIL conduct scientific research. This is especially true for
> those members of SIL who hold positions at universities but it also
> includes members of SIL who do not hold university positions but who have
> PhD’s in linguistics and engage is scientific research. The interest these
> people have in linguistic research is no different from the interest that
> non-SIL academics have in linguistic research. Their interest in
> linguistics is simply something that runs in parallel to their religious
> beliefs and their interest in Bible translation. It is clear that Kenneth
> Pike, who was president of SIL from 1942 to 1979, considered one of the
> major goals of SIL to be language description as an end in itself. It is
> for that reason that SIL is both a missionary organization and an academic
> organization.
>
>
>
> While Dan is right about the origin and impetus for Ethnologue within SIL,
> it is clear that the primary motivation for those who have been most
> involved in Ethnologue is scientific. SIL has had a crucial role in the
> assignment of ISO codes because it is an academic organization.
>
>
>
> We typologists owe an immense debt to SIL, for there is no academic
> institution or organization that has produced more than a fraction of the
> language description that has been produced by SIL (except, perhaps,
> Australian National University), something that is crucial for typologists
> whose work relies on language descriptions.
>
>
>
> Matthew
>
>
>
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>
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