ERIC Number: EJ1173916
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1934-5275
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Some Principles for Language Names
Haspelmath, Martin
Language Documentation & Conservation, v11 p81-93 2017
Linguists are sometimes confronted with choices concerning language names. For example, one and the same language may be referred to as Persian or Farsi. This short paper discusses some principles that one might use for making decisions when there are variant forms in use, or when one feels that none of the existing names is appropriate. The principles discussed here arose from work on Glottolog, an English-language database of the world's languages (Glottolog.org), where each language has a single primary English name (though variant forms are of course included), and where the goal is to choose the best variant form as the primary name of the language. Whenever the question arises which variant name form to choose, the Glottolog editors are guided by these principles, so they are formulated in a prescriptive way, but with explanation and justification for each principle. It seems that the general issue is also quite important for language documenters, because the names of non-major languages are often not fully established yet, and naming decisions have to be made.
Descriptors: Language Research, Language Planning, Databases, Second Languages, Resource Materials, English, Language Variation, Editing, Decision Making, Documentation, Electronic Publishing, Linguistic Borrowing
National Foreign Language Resources Center at University of Hawaii. Department of Linguistics, UHM Moore Hall 569, 1890 East-West Road, Honolulu, HI 96822. Fax: 808-956-9166; e-mail: ldc@hawaii.edu; Web site: http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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