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Evaluation of language statistics
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- 3. Evaluation of language statistics
- 3.1. Sources and currency of data
3. Evaluation of language statistics The Ethnologue provides extensive information on its sources of information both in the entries itself and in the bibliography. Hence, it is possible to get an idea of the nature of the information in the Ethnologue and the quality of its data. The Linguasphere Register does not provide the same kind of documentation within entries, but instead provides links to many of its sources on various pages of its website. Hence, we cannot evaluate the Linguasphere directly, but we can compare it to the Ethnologue to ascertain Of particular interest are the cited population figures, their source and the currency of the data represented. Also of interest are the methods by which the data were collected (through field linguistic survey, census, etc.). Finally, we should also be interested in what, if anything, we can learn from the statistics that are presented. By tabulating the statistics presented in different ways, and attempting to understand what they might tell us about language populations, diversity and endangerment, we can potentially learn about the gaps in the existing knowledge about languages and their speakers, as well as the nature of the sources of information that we do have.
This section comprises an evaluation primarily of the Ethnologue, comparing at relevant points to the Linguasphere Register as well as other relevant references. The evaluation of language entries is conducted on two distinct sets of data. The first is a random sample of 2001 entries from the 15 th edition of the Ethnologue, for which we can conduct a more in-depth investigation. The second data set is the complete set of language entries from the 14 th edition of the Ethnologue, which was collected for an earlier project (Paolillo 2005). We also undertake a separate analysis of country entries and maps, from the 15 th edition.
The analysis of the language entries proceeds in three parts. First, in section 3.1 we investigate the cited sources for language entries, using summary counts of the different sources classified according to type. Second, we examine the currency of the data across language entries, by source, language family, country and region. Third, we investigate the language group sizes recorded in the Ethnologue using the same breakdowns as for currency, also comparing with the Linguasphere Register to examine the consistency across the two resources. We then consider location information in section 3.4, information about media, literatures and language use in section 3.5, followed by classification issues in section 3.6. A short summary in section 3.8 concludes this section of the report.
Our evaluation of the sources of the Ethnologue is based upon the random sample of 2001 language entries. We identified the population estimate for each entry, if present, and identified its source, and the year of the citation. We then classified each of the sources according to one of several types: SIL, academic, Government, World Christian Database, other Christian missionary, and other sources. When multiple sources were given for a single entry, we used only the most recent one to determine both source type and year. A number of entries had a date for a population figure, but no source. These were recorded as “not indicated”. Still others gave a population figure, but had no source or date. These were recorded as “none”. Finally, a number had no population estimate, and hence no source information for it; these were recorded as “no estimate”. The types and year of sources are cross-tabulated in Table 2.
Table 2. Type of source by year for population figures in a random sample of 2001 Ethnologue entries.
1920-5 1956-65 1966-75 1976-85 1986-95 1996-pres. Total SIL 0 0 15 93
169 242
519 Academic 1 1 17 149
104 204
477 Government 0 1 1 25
114 103
245 WCD 0 0 0 1 2 157 160
Missionary 0 0 0 10
64 47
121 Other 0 0 4 0 5 6 15
Not indicated 1 1 0 20
68 192
282 None 0 0 0 0 0 0 118
No estimate 0 0 0 0 0 0 64
Total 2 3 37 298
526 951
2001
Table 2 indicates that almost half of the Ethnologue’s sources for population figures in the language entries are relatively recent; the bulk of the remainder fall within the last 30 years, but there are some disturbingly old sources, such as one from 1920 and one from 1925, in this sample. The two languages in question are both reportedly spoken in Nigeria: Beele [bxq], 120 speakers in Bauchi state in a few villages near the Bole, and Sheni [scv], 200 speakers in Kaduna state. It is unclear whether these would have survived to the present day with such small numbers of speakers. Nigeria has 510 living languages listed, so perhaps it is understandable that these small languages have been missed in subsequent reports.
The distribution of source types indicates that the Ethnologue relies on SIL sources for more than a quarter of its population estimates, and nearly as many from academic sources. Presumably this is because many of the languages reported in the Ethnologue are smaller and would not be reliably individuated by government and other sources. A second major source of population estimates comes from the World Christian Database (WCD) and other Christian missionary sources, collectively accounting for just over a tenth of the language entries. What distinguishes these sources from many others is the possibility that they have staff reporting these estimates from the field, in the manner of academic linguists and SIL. However, it is less likely that such estimates would be from trained linguists employing established language survey methods. Conversations with the Ethnologue editorial indicated that their main concern with these data sources is that they might report ethnic populations, instead of actual language populations. While the two methods of counting can give similar estimates, it is hazardous to assume so, especially in cases of language shift.
the language entries. For both of these categories, the Ethnologue staff surmised that Yüklə 1,04 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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