Re: the Ethnologue

From: Peter_Constable@sil.org
Date: Thu Sep 14 2000 - 10:05:02 EDT


Antoine:

You have made a number of points, and I won't take time to respond to all
of them since it seems to me that we are largely on the same page. Indeed,
adding a comprehensive list of identifiers will not solve all problems;
indeed, problems will forever remain with us precisely because languages
are fuzzy categories that are constantly evolving, and can be categorized
differently according to ones purposes. (You mentioned political issues;
this falls under the discussion of alternate operational definitions of
language serving different purposes, which Gary Simons discuss in our
paper.)

I am sorry if I missed your point on Valencian. I must admit I didn't read
it through carefully because (a) I'm not that familiar with the speech
varieties in question, and (b) I had a very full in-box on this topic to
respond to yesterday.

I'm also sorry that I don't yet have the paper and slides posted where
everybody who wasn't at IUC17 can get at them. It is among the items on the
top of the priority list.

- Peter

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Constable

Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485
E-mail: <peter_constable@sil.org>



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