Subject: [Ltru] [slightly OT] Linguasphere (was Great Script Debate Part II: Formats...)

From: "Peter Constable" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 10:22:29 -0700

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On
> Behalf Of L.Gillam

> The upper layers of the Linguasphere and what is proposed for 639-5
are,
> based on a small sample, highly interoperable.

This is slightly overstated, I think. 

Linguasphere's upper-layer analysis divides the world into ten buckets.
Five correspond to linguistic phyla (which are genetic classifications),
and five correspond to regions of the world. 

For the five genetic buckets, the upper layers are somewhat, but not
highly, interoperable with 639-5. There are a couple of factors that
limit the extent to which the two align. 

First, you need to ignore several of Linguasphere's
artificially-constructed categories which are necessitated by fitting
everything into its model, which requires every language to be in some
net in some chain in some set in some zone in the given sector (phylum).
For instance, the analysis for Coptic is:

sector / zone / set / chain / net / (outer) language = 
Afro-Asiatic / Coptic / Coptic / Coptic / Coptic / Coptic

You won't find an entry for Coptic in the draft table for 639-5.

Secondly, Linguasphere appears to have more higher-level branching than
is currently reflected in the draft table for 639-5. Specifically, it
often treats as a level-2 node something that in the analysis used for
639-5 is a level-3 node and as a result not included in the current
draft for 639-5. The result of this is that Linguasphere has several
level-2 nodes not found in the current draft of 639-5, and vice versa.

(Some notes: I believe the current draft for 639-5 was based largely on
Ethnologue, which itself is based on the Oxford International
Encyclopaedia of Linguistics and Tyron's Comparitive Austronesian
Dictionary. The number of layers included in the current draft of 639-5
for a given family or phylum varies from two to four; I'm not sure on
what basis the editor for 639-5 decided how many layers to include,
though it appears to be partly related to the size of the phylum:
Austronesian, with >1200 languages, gets IDs for four layers while
Afroasiatic, with < 400 languages, gets IDs for two layers. My
understanding is that Linguasphere's analysis, to the extent that it
differs from the above sources, is novel.) 

Of Linguasphere's five "phylosectors", Indo-European gets the best
interop with the current draft for 639-5. The other four don't fair all
that well. This results from Linguasphere's unique analysis, which
appears to be driven largely by the insistence of fitting everything
into its five-layer model for upper levels of hierarchy and of having
ten top layers each with ten level-2 groupings.

As for Linguasphere's five "geosectors", the story is largely the same.
The draft for 639-5 has inherited "North American Indian languages" and
"South American Indian Languages" from 639-2, which match three of
Linguasphere's geosectors. The level-2 nodes for NAI align somewhat,
with a couple of issues. First, you must see past Linguasphere's
insistence on geographic designators where familiar genetic terms exist:
"Saint Lawrence" instead of Iroquioan, "Mississippi" instead of Siouan.
The bigger issue is Linguasphere's insistence on ten level-2 nodes in
each sector, forcing level-2 nodes that combining distinct families
while in some cases splitting others. So, for instance, instead of nodes
for Salishan and Penutian, it has a "Farwest" geozone; and the Hokan
family appears to largely match L's "Desert" geozone, though there are a
couple of Hokan outliers down in Oaxaca that appear to be somewhere else
in L. (I'm not sure where, though: one of L's problems is that it can be
really hard to find things since there's no index by name or by country,
and the hierarchies don't correspond with familiar analyses.)

The draft table for 639-5 has no category corresponding to L's top-level
"Eurasia" geosector, but some of L's geozones in that sector align with
639-5 entries: Uralic, Causasus, Dravidic. The other level-2 nodes are
more of these geographic groupings artificially created to result in ten
zones within each sector. You won't find "Siberia" in 639-5, neither
will you find a node for Altaic in Linguasphere.

The story for L's "Africa" and "South America" geozones appear to be
similar to that for "North America" and "Eurasia"; "Australia" looks
like it would be less hopeful (but I haven't looked at it in detail).

So, all in all, the best I think can be said regarding interoperability
between 639-5 and Linguasphere is that the are somewhat interoperable. I
don't think it really can be said that they are highly interoperable.

Peter Constable

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---

From: "Debbie Garside" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 18:40:26 +0100

Before we get into a great OT debate about Linguasphere... I think we should
be clear about something.  Peter is quoting from the Linguasphere Register
as published in 2000.  There have been significant changes since this
publication.  

I think it would be prudent to wait for the draft of 639-6 before we discuss
this.  

Kind regards

Debbie

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
> Behalf Of Peter Constable
> Sent: 12 April 2005 18:22
> To: ltru
> Subject: [Ltru] [slightly OT] Linguasphere (was Great Script Debate Part
> II:Formats...)
>