Afade (Afaɗə) is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in eastern Nigeria and northwestern Cameroon .
78-644: Afade is a member of the Biu-Mandara group of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages. It is related to the Cameroonian languages Mpade, Maslam, Malgbe, Mser, and Lagwan. The speakers of Afade are the indigenous Kotoko people of Cameroon and Nigeria. According to Ethnologue , in Cameroon, it is spoken in the far North region: Logone-and-Chari division, south Makari subdivision, Afade area. The language
156-541: A macrolanguage consisting of two distinct languages, Twi and Fante , whereas Ethnologue considers Twi and Fante to be dialects of a single language (Akan), since they are mutually intelligible. This anomaly resulted because the ISO 639-2 standard has separate codes for Twi and Fante, which have separate literary traditions, and all 639-2 codes for individual languages are automatically part of 639-3, even though 639-3 would not normally assign them separate codes. In 2014, with
234-424: A 2021 review of Ethnologue and Glottolog, linguist Shobhana Chelliah noted that "For better or worse, the impact of the site is indeed considerable. [...] Clearly, the site has influence on the field of linguistics and beyond." She added that she, among other linguists, integrated Ethnologue in her linguistics classes." The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics uses Ethnologue as its primary source for
312-650: A Georgian alphabet was likely still motivated by Christians who wished to translate holy scriptures. In the 6th century, the Bible was translated into Old Nubian . By the end of the eighth century, Church of the East monasteries (so-called Nestorians ) had translated the New Testament and Psalms (at least, the portions needed for liturgical use) from Syriac to Sogdian , the lingua franca in Central Asia of
390-636: A Gospel of St Matthew in Hebrew letters. Jerome also reports in his preface to St Matthew that it was originally composed "in Hebrew letters in Judea" not in Greek and that he saw and copied one from the Nazarene sect. The exact provenance, authorship, source languages and collation of the four Gospels is unknown but subject to much academic speculation and disputed methods . Some of the first translations of
468-566: A Koine Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures in several stages (completing the task by 132 BC). The Talmud ascribes the translation effort to Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 285–246 BC), who allegedly hired 72 Jewish scholars for the purpose, for which reason the translation is commonly known as the Septuagint (from the Latin septuaginta , "seventy"), a name which it gained in "the time of Augustine of Hippo " (354–430 AD). The Septuagint (LXX),
546-448: A country. From this edition, Ethnologue includes data about first and second languages of refugees , temporary foreign workers and immigrants. In 2021, the 24th edition had 7,139 modern languages, an increase of 22 living languages from the 23rd edition. Editors especially improved data about language shift in this edition. In 2022, the 25th edition listed a total of 7,151 living languages, an increase of 12 living languages from
624-469: A highly valuable catalogue of the world's languages that "has become the standard reference" and whose "usefulness is hard to overestimate". They concluded that Ethnologue was "truly excellent, highly valuable, and the very best book of its sort available." In a review of Ethnologue 's 2009 edition in Ethnopolitics , Richard O. Collin , professor of politics, noted that " Ethnologue has become
702-694: A metered paywall to cover its cost, as it is financially self-sustaining. Users in high-income countries who wanted to refer to more than seven pages of data per month had to buy a paid subscription . The 18th edition released that year included a new section on language policy country by country. In 2016, Ethnologue added date about language planning agencies to the 19th edition. As of 2017, Ethnologue 's 20th edition described 237 language families including 86 language isolates and six typological categories, namely sign languages , creoles , pidgins , mixed languages , constructed languages , and as yet unclassified languages . The early focus of
780-864: A revision of earlier Latin translations, was dominant in Western Christianity during the Middle Ages . The Latin-speaking western church led by the Pope did not translate the Scriptures or liturgy into languages of recently converted peoples such as the Irish, Franks or Norsemen. By contrast, the Eastern Orthodox Church, centred in Constantinople, did, in some cases, translate the Scriptures and liturgy, most successfully in
858-636: A ruler in England, had a number of passages of the Bible circulated in the vernacular in around 900. These included passages from the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch , which he prefixed to a code of laws he promulgated around this time. In approximately 990, a full and freestanding version of the four Gospels in idiomatic Old English appeared, in the West Saxon dialect ; these are called
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#1732765873569936-455: A scientific perspective. He concluded: " Ethnologue is at present still better than any other nonderivative work of the same scope. [It] is an impressively comprehensive catalogue of world languages, and it is far superior to anything else produced prior to 2009. In particular, it is superior by virtue of being explicit." According to Hammarström, as of 2016, Ethnologue and Glottolog are the only global-scale continually maintained inventories of
1014-470: A single language depends upon sociolinguistic evaluation by various scholars; as the preface to Ethnologue states, "Not all scholars share the same set of criteria for what constitutes a 'language' and what features define a ' dialect '." The criteria used by Ethnologue are mutual intelligibility and the existence or absence of a common literature or ethnolinguistic identity. The number of languages identified has been steadily increasing, from 5,445 in
1092-582: A standard resource for scholars in the other social sciences: anthropologists, economists, sociologists and, obviously, sociolinguists". According to Collin, Ethnologue is "stronger in languages spoken by indigenous peoples in economically less-developed portions of the world" and "when recent in-depth country-studies have been conducted, information can be very good; unfortunately [...] data are sometimes old". In 2012, linguist Asya Pereltsvaig described Ethnologue as "a reasonably good source of thorough and reliable geographical and demographic information about
1170-525: A team of editors by geographical area who prepare reports to Ethnologue's general editor. These reports combine opinions from SIL area experts and feedback solicited from non-SIL linguists. Editors have to find compromises when opinions differ. Most of SIL's linguists have taken three to four semesters of graduate linguistics courses, and half of them have a master's degree. They're trained by 300 PhD linguists in SIL. The determination of what characteristics define
1248-548: A ɑ/. /a/ is front, rather than central. This article about a Biu-Mandara language is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Nigeria -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Cameroon -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Ethnologue Ethnologue: Languages of the World is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on
1326-518: Is listed as a language. In addition to choosing a primary name for a language, Ethnologue provides listings of other name(s) for the language and any dialects that are used by its speakers, government, foreigners and neighbors. Also included are any names that have been commonly referenced historically, regardless of whether a name is considered official, politically correct or offensive; this allows more complete historic research to be done. These lists of names are not necessarily complete. Ethnologue
1404-633: Is spoken by 6,700 Cameroon speakers. In Nigeria, Afade is spoken by 40,000 speakers in Borno State , Ngala LGA, 12 villages. There are no known dialects. In Cameroon, Afade is spoken in the southern part of Makari commune, centered on the town of Afade and extending into Logone-Birni ( Logone-et-Chari department, Far North region). It is spoken mainly in Nigeria. Afade has a large inventory of consonants, including ejectives, implosives, and labial-velar stops. The vowels of Afade are /i u e ɤ o ɛ ɔ
1482-729: The Wessex Gospels . Around the same time, a compilation now called the Old English Hexateuch appeared with the first six (or, in one version, seven) books of the Old Testament. The arrival of the mendicant preaching orders in the 12th century saw individual books being translated with commentary, in Italian dialects. Typically the Psalms were among the first books to be translated, being prayers: for example,
1560-645: The Bible in each language and dialect described, religious affiliations of speakers, a cursory description of revitalization efforts where reported, intelligibility and lexical similarity with other dialects and languages, writing scripts, an estimate of language viability using the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS), and bibliographic resources. Coverage varies depending on languages. For instance, as of 2008, information on word order
1638-586: The Byzantine text-type , and the Western text-type . Most variants among the manuscripts are minor, such as alternative spelling, alternative word order, the presence or absence of an optional definite article ("the"), and so on. Occasionally, a major variant happens when a portion of a text was missing or for other reasons. Examples of major variants are the endings of Mark , the Pericope Adulteræ ,
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#17327658735691716-746: The Cathar and Waldensian heresies, in South France and Catalonia. This demonstrates that such translations existed: there is evidence of some vernacular translations being permitted while others were being scrutinized. A group of Middle English Bible translations were created: including the Wycliffean Bibles (1383, 1393) and the Paues New Testament, based on the Vulgate. New unauthorized translations were banned in England by
1794-679: The Comma Johanneum , and the Western version of Acts . The discovery of older manuscripts which belong to the Alexandrian text-type, including the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus , led scholars to revise their view about the original Greek text. Karl Lachmann based his critical edition of 1831 on manuscripts dating from the 4th century and earlier, to argue that the Textus Receptus must be corrected according to these earlier texts. Early manuscripts of
1872-568: The Council of Laodicea in 363 (both lacked the Book of Revelation ), and later established by Athanasius of Alexandria in 367 (with Revelation added). Jerome's Vulgate Latin translation dates to between AD 382 and 405. Latin translations predating Jerome are collectively known as Vetus Latina texts. Jerome began by revising these earlier Latin translations, but ended by going back to the original Greek, bypassing all translations, and going back to
1950-632: The Gospel of John into Old English by the Venerable Bede , which is said to have been prepared shortly before his death around the year 735. An Old High German version of the gospel of Matthew dates to 748. Charlemagne in c. 800 charged Alcuin with a revision of the Latin Vulgate. The translation into Old Church Slavonic was started in 863 by Cyril and Methodius . Alfred the Great ,
2028-674: The Masoretic text , but also take into account possible variants from all available ancient versions. The Christian New Testament was written in Koine Greek, and nearly all modern translations are to some extent based upon the Greek text. Origen 's Hexapla ( c. 235 ) placed side by side six versions of the Old Testament: the Hebrew consonantal text, the Hebrew text transliterated into Greek letters (the Secunda ),
2106-522: The Pauline epistles and other New Testament writings show no punctuation whatsoever. The punctuation was added later by other editors, according to their own understanding of the text. There is also a long-standing tradition owing to Papias of Hierapolis (c.125) that the Gospel of Matthew was originally in Hebrew. Eusebius (c.300) reports that Pantaenus went to India (c. 200) and found them using
2184-763: The Torah began during the Babylonian exile , when Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Jews. With most people speaking only Aramaic and not understanding Hebrew, the Targums were created to allow the common person to understand the Torah as it was read in ancient synagogues . By the 3rd century BC, Alexandria had become the center of Hellenistic Judaism , and during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC translators compiled in Egypt
2262-499: The World Bank are eligible for free access and there are discounts for libraries and independent researchers. Subscribers are mostly institutions: 40% of the world's top 50 universities subscribe to Ethnologue , and it is also sold to business intelligence firms and Fortune 500 companies. The introduction of the paywall was harshly criticized by the community of linguists who rely on Ethnologue to do their work and cannot afford
2340-586: The earliest Polish translation from 1280. There are numerous manuscripts of the Psalms in Catalan from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, translated from the Vulgate, Occitan, French and Hebrew, with a New Testament and full bible translation made in the 1300s. Parts of an Old Testament in Old Spanish from the late 1300s still exist. Monks completed a translation into Franco-Provençal (Arpitan) c.1170-85, commissioned by Peter Waldo . The complete Bible
2418-725: The living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It was first issued in 1951, and is now published by SIL International , an American evangelical Christian non-profit organization . Ethnologue has been published by SIL Global (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics), a Christian linguistic service organization with an international office in Dallas , Texas. The organization studies numerous minority languages to facilitate language development, and to work with speakers of such language communities in translating portions of
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2496-425: The 10th edition (in 1984) to 6,909 in the 16th (in 2009), partly due to governments according designation as languages to mutually intelligible varieties and partly due to SIL establishing new Bible translation teams. Ethnologue codes were used as the base to create the new ISO 639-3 international standard. Since 2007, Ethnologue relies only on this standard, administered by SIL International, to determine what
2574-529: The 17th edition, Ethnologue has been published every year, on February 21 , which is International Mother Language Day . Bible translations The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew , Aramaic , and Greek . As of September 2023 all of the Bible has been translated into 736 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,658 languages, and smaller portions of
2652-543: The 17th edition, Ethnologue introduced a numerical code for language status using a framework called EGIDS (Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale) , an elaboration of Fishman's GIDS ( Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale ). It ranks a language from 0 for an international language to 10 for an extinct language , i.e. a language with which no-one retains a sense of ethnic identity. In 2015, SIL's funds decreased and in December 2015, Ethnologue launched
2730-490: The 24th edition. This edition specifically improved the use of languages in education . In 2023, the 26th edition listed a total of 7,168 living languages, an increase of 17 living languages from the 25th edition. In 2024, the 27th edition listed a total of 7,164 living languages, a decrease of 4 living languages from the 26th edition. In 1986, William Bright , then editor of the journal Language , wrote of Ethnologue that it "is indispensable for any reference shelf on
2808-567: The 5th century, Mesrob Mashtots translated the Bible using the Armenian alphabet invented by him. Also dating from the same period is the first Georgian translation. The creation of the Georgian scripts , like the Armenian alphabet, was also attributed to Mashtots by the scholar Koryun in the 5th century. This claim has been disputed by modern Georgian scholars, although the creation of
2886-486: The Bible have been translated into 1,264 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance . Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,658 languages. The Old Testament, written in Hebrew (with some sections in the book of Daniel in the Aramaic language) was translated into Aramaic (the so-called Targums, originally not written down), Greek and Syriac . The New Testament, written in Greek,
2964-510: The Bible into their languages. Despite the Christian orientation of its publisher, Ethnologue is not ideologically or theologically biased. Ethnologue includes alternative names and autonyms , the number of L1 and L2 speakers, language prestige , domains of use, literacy rates , locations, dialects, language classification , linguistic affiliations , typology , language maps, country maps, publication and use in media, availability of
3042-465: The Church of Constantinople. Athanasius ( Apol. Const. 4 ) recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans . Little else is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, it is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists , and that Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 , Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus are examples of these Bibles. Together with
3120-524: The Ethnologue was on native use (L1) but was gradually expanded to cover L2 use as well. In 2019, Ethnologue disabled trial views and introduced a hard paywall to cover its nearly $ 1 million in annual operating costs (website maintenance, security, researchers, and SIL's 5,000 field linguists). Subscriptions start at $ 480 per person per year, while full access costs $ 2,400 per person per year. Users in low and middle-income countries as defined by
3198-516: The Greek translations of Aquila of Sinope and Symmachus the Ebionite , one recension of the Septuagint, and the Greek translation of Theodotion . In addition, he included three anonymous translations of the Psalms (the Quinta , Sexta and Septima ). His eclectic recension of the Septuagint had a significant influence on the Old Testament text in several important manuscripts. In the 2nd century,
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3276-568: The Hebrew texts on which the Septuagint was based, many scholars believe that they represent a different textual tradition (" Vorlage ") from the one that became the basis for the Masoretic texts. Christian translations of the Old Testament also tend to be based upon the Hebrew, though some denominations prefer the Septuagint (or may cite variant readings from both). Bible translations incorporating modern textual criticism usually begin with
3354-684: The Old Testament was translated into Syriac translation, and the Gospels in the Diatessaron gospel harmony. The New Testament was translated in the 5th century, now known as the Peshitta. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, the New Testament was translated into various Coptic (Egyptian) dialects. The Old Testament was already translated by that stage. In 331, the Emperor Constantine commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for
3432-417: The Peshitta, these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles. The Bible was translated into Gothic (an early East Germanic language) in the 4th century by a group of scholars, possibly under the supervision of Ulfilas (Wulfila). The canonical Christian Bible was formally established by Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem in 350 (although it had been generally accepted by the church previously), confirmed by
3510-509: The Septuagint contain several passages and whole books not included in the Masoretic texts of the Tanakh . In some cases these additions were originally composed in Greek, while in other cases they are translations of Hebrew books or of Hebrew variants not present in the Masoretic texts. Recent discoveries have shown that more of the Septuagint additions have a Hebrew origin than previously thought. While there are no complete surviving manuscripts of
3588-451: The Septuagint was widely used by Greek-speaking Jews, and later by Christians. It differs somewhat from the later standardized Hebrew ( Masoretic Text ). This translation was promoted by way of a legend (primarily recorded as the Letter of Aristeas ) that seventy (or in some sources, seventy-two) separate translators all produced identical texts; supposedly proving its accuracy. Versions of
3666-479: The Silk Road, which was an Eastern Iranian language with Chinese loanwords, written in letters and logograms derived from Aramaic script. They may have also translated parts of books into a Chinese . When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they wrote notes on the margins of the page ( marginal glosses ) to correct their text—especially if a scribe accidentally omitted a word or line—and to comment about
3744-566: The case of the Slavonic language of Eastern Europe. Since then, the Bible has been translated into many more languages. English Bible translations have a rich and varied history of more than a millennium. (See List of English Bible translations .) Textual variants in the New Testament include errors, omissions, additions, changes, and alternate translations. In some cases, different translations have been used as evidence for or have been motivated by doctrinal differences. The Hebrew Bible
3822-475: The date when last fluent speaker of the language died, standardized the age range of language users, and improved the EGIDS estimates. In 2020, the 23rd edition listed 7,117 living languages, an increase of 6 living languages from the 22nd edition. In this edition, Ethnologue expanded its coverage of immigrant languages : previous editions only had full entries for languages considered to be "established" within
3900-475: The entire Bible in Latin is the Codex Amiatinus , a Latin Vulgate edition produced in 8th-century England at the double monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow . Latin and its early Romance dialects were widely spoken as the primary or secondary language throughout Western Europe, including Britain even in the 700s and 800s. Between the 4th to 6th centuries, the Bible was translated into Ge'ez (Ethiopic). In
3978-734: The greater part of the New." Friar Giovanni da Montecorvino of the large Franciscan mission to Mongol China in the early 1300s translated the Psalms and New Testament into the language of the Tartars : the Uyghur language or perhaps the Mongolian language . A royal Swedish version of 1316 has been lost. The entire Bible was translated into Czech around 1360. The provincial synods of Toulouse (1229) and Tarragona (1234) temporarily outlawed possession of some vernacular renderings, in reaction to
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#17327658735694056-712: The lack of references, Ethnologue added in 2013 a link on each language to language resources from the Open Language Archives Community (OLAC) Ethnologue acknowledges that it rarely quotes any source verbatim but cites sources wherever specific statements are directly attributed to them, and corrects missing attributions upon notification. The website provides a list of all of the references cited. In her 2021 review, Shobhana Chelliah noted that Glottolog aims to be better than Ethnologue in language classification and genetic and areal relationships by using linguists' original sources. Starting with
4134-414: The languages of the world". The 2003 International Encyclopedia of Linguistics described Ethnologue as "a comprehensive listing of the world's languages, with genetic classification", and follows Ethnologue's classification. In 2005, linguists Lindsay J. Whaley and Lenore Grenoble considered that Ethnologue "continues to provide the most comprehensive and reliable count of numbers of speakers of
4212-710: The level of endangerment in languages around the world." The US National Science Foundation uses Ethnologue to determine which languages are endangered. According to Hammarström et al., Ethnologue is, as of 2022, one of the three global databases documenting language endangerment with the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger and the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat). The University of Hawaii Kaipuleohone language archive uses Ethnologue 's metadata as well. The World Atlas of Language Structures uses Ethnologue 's genealogical classification. The Rosetta Project uses Ethnologue 's language metadata. In 2005, linguist Harald Hammarström wrote that Ethnologue
4290-488: The list of languages and language maps. According to linguist Suzanne Romaine , Ethnologue is also the leading source for research on language diversity . According to The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society , Ethnologue is "the standard reference source for the listing and enumeration of Endangered Languages, and for all known and "living" languages of the world"." Similarly, linguist David Bradley describes Ethnologue as "the most comprehensive effort to document
4368-419: The loose paraphrase Speculum Vitae Christi ( The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ ), which had been authorized into English around 1410. A Cornish version may have been made. The Hungarian Hussite Bible appeared in 1416. Individual books continued to be translated: for example the Gospel of John in Slovak (1469). The first 12 books of the Old Testament in Danish (also used for Norwegian)
4446-536: The only comprehensive sources of information about language populations and that Ethnologue had more specific information. They concluded that: "the language statistics available today in the form of the Ethnologue population counts are already good enough to be useful" According to linguist William Poser , Ethnologue was, as of 2006, the "best single source of information" on language classification. In 2008 linguists Lyle Campbell and Verónica Grondona highly commended Ethnologue in Language . They described it as
4524-442: The original Hebrew wherever he could instead of the Septuagint. There are also several ancient translations, most important of which are in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic (including the Peshitta). The Codex Vaticanus dates to c. 325 –350, and is missing only 21 sentences or paragraphs in various New Testament books: it is one of the four great uncial codices . The earliest surviving complete single-volume manuscript of
4602-407: The provincial Oxford Synod in 1408 under church law; possession of material that contained Lollard material (such as the so-called General Prologue found in a few Wycliffite Bibles) was also illegal by English state law , in response to Lollard uprisings. Later, many parts of the Bible in Late Middle English were printed by William Caxton in his translation of the Golden Legend (1483), and in
4680-436: The scope of other existing standards, e.g. ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2 . The 14th edition, published in 2000, included 7,148 language codes. In 2002, Ethnologue was asked to work with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to integrate its codes into a draft international standard. Ethnologue codes have then been adopted by ISO as the international standard, ISO 639-3 . The 15th edition of Ethnologue
4758-425: The subscription The same year, Ethnologue launched its contributor program to fill gaps and improve accuracy, allowing contributors to submit corrections and additions and to get a complimentary access to the website. Ethnologue 's editors gradually review crowdsourced contributions before publication. As 2019 was the International Year of Indigenous Languages , this edition focused on language loss : it added
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#17327658735694836-449: The text, since the original text contained only consonants . This sometimes required the selection of an interpretation; since some words differ only in their vowels their meaning can vary in accordance with the vowels chosen. In antiquity, variant Hebrew readings existed, some of which have survived in the Samaritan Pentateuch and other ancient fragments, as well as being attested in ancient versions in other languages. The New Testament
4914-409: The text. When later scribes were copying the copy, they were sometimes uncertain if a note was intended to be included as part of the text. See textual criticism . Over time, different regions evolved different versions, each with its own assemblage of omissions, additions, and variants (mostly in orthography ). There are some fragmentary Old English Bible translations , notably a lost translation of
4992-413: The very first translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek , later became the accepted text of the Old Testament in the Christian church and the basis of its canon . Jerome based his Latin Vulgate translation on the Hebrew for those books of the Bible preserved in the Jewish canon (as reflected in the Masoretic text ), and on the Greek text for the deuterocanonical books . The translation now known as
5070-478: The world's languages", still they recognize that "individual language surveys may have far more accurate counts for a specific language, but The Ethnologue is unique in bringing together speaker statistics on a global scale". In 2006, computational linguists John C. Paolillo and Anupam Das conducted a systematic evaluation of available information on language populations for the UNESCO Institute for Statistics . They reported that Ethnologue and Linguasphere were
5148-556: The world's languages". She added in 2021 that its maps "are generally fairly accurate although they often depict the linguistic situation as it once was or as someone might imagine it to be but not as it actually is". Linguist George Tucker Childs wrote in 2012 that: " Ethnologue is the most widely referenced source for information on languages of the world", but he added that regarding African languages, "when evaluated against recent field experience [Ethnologue] seems at least out of date". In 2014, Ethnologue admitted that some of its data
5226-656: The world's languages. The main difference is that Ethnologue includes additional information (such as speaker numbers or vitality) but lacks systematic sources for the information given. In contrast, Glottolog provides no language context information but points to primary sources for further data. Contrary to Ethnologue , Glottolog does not run its own surveys, but it uses Ethnologue as one of its primary sources. As of 2019, Hammarström uses Ethnologue in his articles, noting that it "has (unsourced, but) detailed information associated with each speech variety, such as speaker numbers and map location". In response to feedback about
5304-520: Was "the best source that list the non-endangered languages of the world". Lyle Campbell and Russell Barlow also noted that the 2017 edition of Ethnologue "improved [its] classification markedly". They note that Ethnologue 's genealogy is similar to that of the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) but different from that of the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat) and Glottolog. Linguist Lisa Matthewson commented in 2020 that Ethnologue offers "accurate information about speaker numbers". In
5382-432: Was consistent with specialist views most of the time and was a catalog "of very high absolute value and by far the best of its kind". In 2011, Hammarström created Glottolog in response to the lack of a comprehensive language bibliography, especially in Ethnologue . In 2015, Hammarström reviewed the 16th, 17th, and 18th editions of Ethnologue and described the frequent lack of citations as its only "serious fault" from
5460-507: Was created in 1971 at the University of Oklahoma under a grant from the National Science Foundation . In 1974 the database was moved to Cornell University . Since 2000, the database has been maintained by SIL International in their Dallas headquarters. In 1997 (13th edition), the website became the primary means of access. In 1984, Ethnologue released a three-letter coding system, called an 'SIL code', to identify each language that it described. This set of codes significantly exceeded
5538-407: Was first translated into Syriac, Latin and Coptic – all before the time of Emperor Constantine. By the year 500, the Bible had been translated into Ge'ez , Gothic , Armenian and Georgian. By the year 1000, a number of other translations were added (in some cases partial), including Old Nubian, Sogdian, Arabic and Slavonic languages, among others. Jerome 's 4th-century Latin Vulgate version,
5616-422: Was founded in 1951 by Richard S. Pittman and was initially focused on minority languages, to share information on Bible translation needs. The first edition included information on 46 languages. Hand-drawn maps were introduced in the fourth edition (1953). The seventh edition (1969) listed 4,493 languages. In 1971, Ethnologue expanded its coverage to all known languages of the world. Ethnologue database
5694-664: Was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew , with some portions (notably in Daniel and Ezra ) in Biblical Aramaic . From the 6th century to the 10th century AD, Jewish scholars, today known as Masoretes , compared the text of various biblical manuscripts in an effort to create a unified, standardized text. A series of highly similar texts eventually emerged, and any of these texts are known as Masoretic Texts (MT). The Masoretes also added vowel points (called niqqud ) to
5772-672: Was out-of-date and switched from a four-year publication cycle (in print and online) to yearly online updates. In 2017, Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas described Ethnologue as "the most comprehensive global source list for (mostly oral) languages". According to the 2018 Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics , Ethnologue is a "comprehensive, frequently updated [database] on languages and language families'. According to quantitative linguists Simon Greenhill , Ethnologue offers, as of 2018, "sufficiently accurate reflections of speaker population size". Linguists Lyle Campbell and Kenneth Lee Rehg wrote in 2018 that Ethnologue
5850-562: Was present for 15% of entries while religious affiliations were mentioned for 38% of languages. According to Lyle Campbell "language maps are highly valuable" and most country maps are of high quality and user-friendly. Ethnologue gathers information from SIL's thousands of field linguists , surveys done by linguists and literacy specialists, observations of Bible translators , and crowdsourced contributions. SIL's field linguists use an online collaborative research system to review current data, update it, or request its removal. SIL has
5928-442: Was the first edition to use this standard. This standard is now administered separately from Ethnologue. SIL International is the registration authority for languages names and codes, according to rules established by ISO. Since then Ethnologue relies on the standard to determine what is listed as a language. In only one case, Ethnologue and the ISO standards treat languages slightly differently. ISO 639-3 considers Akan to be
6006-471: Was translated into Old French in the late 13th century. Parts of this translation were included in editions of the popular Bible historiale , and there is no evidence of this translation being suppressed by the Church. In England, "about the middle of the fourteenth century — before 1361 — the Anglo-Normans possessed an independent and probably complete translation of the whole of the Old Testament and
6084-609: Was written in Koine Greek reporting speech originally in Aramaic , Greek and Latin (see Language of the New Testament ). The autographs , the Greek manuscripts written by the original authors or collators, have not survived. Scholars surmise the original Greek text from the manuscripts that do survive. The three main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament are sometimes called the Alexandrian text-type ,
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