The Ethnologue ^[1] M. Paul Lewis. (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 16th Edn. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. as an academic book, is somewhat of a straw man in linguistics. Many people who write grants for language documentation projects (generally on under described or endangered languages) will cite the Ethnologue and some other resources or lack of resources ^[2] Steven A. Marlett. 2011. Documenting the Me’phaa genus. DEH-NEH fellowship proposal. http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/pdf/DEL_NEH_Marlett.pdf. [PDF] [DEL Awards] [Accessed: 15 February 2011] ^[3] Sadaf Munshi. 2011. Archive of Annotated Burushaski Texts. NSF grant proposal. http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/pdf/DEL_NSF_Munshi.pdf. [PDF] [DEL Awards] [Accessed: 15 February 2011] ^[4]Monica A. Macaulay. 2011. Potawatomi Documentation, Lexical Database, and Dictionary. NEH grant proposal. http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/pdf/DEL_NEH_Macaulay.pdf. [PDF] [DEL Awards] [Accessed: … Continue reading . These efforts seeking funding are usually an effort to get more language data. The rationale for this is two fold:

1. Because so little is known that we do not know if the Ethnologue is correct.
2. Because there is a conflict between other published sources and the Ethnologue ^[5]Roger Blench. n.d. Introduction to the Temein languages http://www.rogerblench.info/Language/Nilo-Saharan/Eastern%20Sudanic/Temein%20cluster/Blench%20Temein%20language%20NM%20proceedings.pdf [PDF] … Continue reading .

In both cases the Ethnologue is not taken as an authoritative and accurate source (in an earnest sense, but certainly a citable source ^[6]Lyle Campbell, and Verónica Grondona. 2008. Review of Ethnologue: Languages of the world. 15th ed. Ed. by Raymond G. Gordon, JR. Dallas: SIL International, 2005. Pp. 1,272. ISBN 155671159X. $80(Hb). … Continue reading ). In some of the courses at the graduate level linguistics program I am in, citing the data from the Ethnologue is verboten. It is not that the Ethnologue is only cited by grant writers or in reference to language documentation efforts. It is cited by many others like:

• persons looking at population statistics ^[7] Larry J. West. n.d. Census v.s The Ethnologue. http://anyothersource.com/CensusvsTheEthnologue.aspx . [Link] [Accessed: 15 February 2011] ^[8]James D. Fearon. 2003. Ethnic Structure and Cultural Diversity around the World: A Cross-National Data Set on Ethnic Groups. http://www.stanford.edu/group/ethnic/workingpapers/egroups.pdf [PDF] … Continue reading ^[9] Michael R. Marlo. 2009. Luyia Tonal Dialectology. http://bit.ly/y9rpoH . [PDF]
• those looking at linguistic diversity ^[10]David Harmon and Jonathan Loh. 2010. The Index of Linguistic Diversity: A New Quantitative Measure of Trends in the Status of the World’s Languages. Langauge Documentation & Conservation Vol. … Continue reading
• those looking to define what a language is ^[11] Gerhard Jäger. 2010. Languages of the World. http://www.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/~gjaeger/lehre/ws1011/languagesOfTheWorld/folien1.pdf [PDF] [Accessed: 15 February 2011]
• those looking to organize their language data ^[12] Fei Xia, Carrie Lewis, William D. Lewis. eLanguage. Language ID for a Thousand Languages. http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=138763. [PDF] [Accessed: 15 February 2011] ^[13] Jan Wohlgemuth. 2009. Towards a typology of verbal borrowing. http://loanverb.linguist.de/maps/LVDB2.pdf [PDF – of data diagram] ^[14]Gary F. Simons. 2002. SIL three-letter codes for identifying languages: migrating from in-house standard to community standard. In Proceedings of the International LREC Workshop on Resources and … Continue reading – Though these people should probably be citing the ISO 639-3 now rather than the Ethnologue
• typologists and comparitivists, and typological works like in Multitree ^[15]2009. Multitree: A digital library of language relationships. Ypsilanti, MI: Institute for Language Information and Technology (LINGUIST List), Eastern Michigan University. http://multitree.org/. … Continue reading or Wichmann et. al’s ^[16]Søren Wichmann, Eric W. Holman, and Robert Walker. Submitted. Causes and consequences of linguistic phylogenetic reticulation. http://wwwstaff.eva.mpg.de/%7Ewichmann/ReticulationPaper12.pdf [PDF … Continue reading Causes and consequences of linguistic phylogenetic reticulation.

However, it is this perspective on the Ethnologue where, academics cite it, and then use the citation in a manner to justify proving it (the Ethnologue) wrong or inaccurate which makes me say that it is perceived as a straw man. The Ethnologue has a long history ^[17]Marie Lebert. 25 July 2011. eBooks: 2009 – 6,909 living languages in the Ethnologue. http://www.gutenbergnews.org/20110725/ebooks-2009-6909-living-languages-in-the-ethnologue/ [Link] [Accessed: 15 … Continue reading . Both Simons and Campbell point out the Ethnologue did not start out as a linguistics publication. The book was not always published by SIL International, it was formerly published by Wycliffe Bible Translators ^[18] Barbara F. Grimes. (Ed.), 1984. Ethnologue: languages of the world, 10th Edn. Dallas, Tex.: Wycliffe Bible Translators. . It is interesting how, a “non-academic” book has such weight in academia and though some despise its origin ^[19] Ole Stig Andersen. 20 June 2005. A Language is a dialect with a missionary. http://www.olestig.dk/reviews/ethnologue.html [Link] it is still a highly cited resource.

Additionally, the Ethnologue does not cited its language tree associations or where it gets it data in its entries.And since 15th Edn. of the Ethnologue ^[20] Raymond G. Gordon, JR. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 15th Edn. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. where it adopted the ISO 639-3 when people today dispute the Ethnologue as conflating or inflating languages perhaps these researchers should be interacting with the ISO 639-3 registrar rather than disputing the Ethnologue. It does have citations for the intro to the book but not for the presentation of material under each language. This is uncommon for Language Atlases and Language Reference books. WALS ^[21] Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds.). 2011. The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library. http://wals.info [Accessed: 12 December 2011] [Link] and the Atlas of the World’s Languages ^[22] Christopher Moseley, R. E. Asher & Giles Darkes (eds.). 2007. Atlas of the world’s languages. London; New York: Routledge. both cite sources.
In terms of academic merit, the Ethnologue does leave itself open to criticism. While it is understandable that some details might be left out for the sake of printing a hardbound copy. There is no excuse for not providing this data to the viewers of the entries on-line or in non-paper mediums. Just because the Ethnologue is open to criticism in this way does not mean that it is not edited in earnest or an award winning publication ^[23]Collins Maps. 25 June 2010. The BCS John C. Bartholomew Award 2010 Winner. http://blog.collinsmaps.com/2010/06/bcs-john-c-bartholomew-award-2010.html . [Link] [Accessed: 27 February 2012] Ethnologue: … Continue reading . As a publication it looks to enhance its coverage to include language vitality and EGIDS ^[24] Paul M. Lewis & Gary F. Simons. 2010. Assessing endangerment: Expanding Fishman’s GIDS. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique 55.2: 103–20. metrics for the languages it lists ^[25]Gary Simons. 2010. Ethnologue as a global sourcebook on linguistic diversity and language vitality. 12th International Congress of Ethnobiology Tofino, British Columbia, 9–14 May 2010. … Continue reading . It is also my understanding that every editorial cycle there are multiple thousands of edits which occur and a great deal of effort goes into keeping the book accurate. However for an end user, edits, enacted because of greater, more accurate knowledge about a reported language situation is not distinguished from edits based on corrections to errors. The question will then arise, What was the purpose of the edit? was it mis-infomration before, or do we now just have a more accurate time sensitive snapshot?