Linguistlist

Introduction / About Linguistlist

Linguistlist is a user and editor here on wikipedia. The user account was created and managed by an editor at The LINGUIST List with the goal of coordinating an update of linguistics and language pages. Look for Linguistlist's activities on WikiProject Linguistics and its many sub-projects. Note that the our Wikipedia Update Project has officially come to a close. However, we hope that our friends and subscribers will continue to update articles on Wikipedia that are about languages and linguistics. There is an active WikiProject Linguistics of editors who do just that!

Activities Log

18 June 2007: Linguist List emailed a call (see the full text) for subscribers to comment on the List of linguists. To date, the response has succeeded in adding links to 6 linguists who had existing articles but were not shown on the list:

• Mary Beckman (phonetics)
• Mary Bucholtz (sociolinguistics)
• Jack Chambers (sociolinguistics)
• David Dowty (semantics)
• Carl Pollard (syntax)
• Tanya Reinhart

And adding a new article on 1 linguist:

• Scott Kiesling (sociolinguistics)- written by Prof. Chad D. Nilep, University of Colorado at Boulder
  
  

11 July 2007: We emailed a call (see the full text) for further volunteers and to share updates. The following reports were made:

• History of the Spanish language - update completed by Dr. Lee Hartman, Carbondale, IL
• Scott Kiesling - article written by Chad D. Nilep, University of Colorado at Boulder

Some subscribers asked for volunteers to add articles on a number of other linguists. See the Bios section below in Requests for Attention for the full list.

2 August 2007: The third call for volunteers (see the full text) highlighted article stubs that could use additional information. Three Wikipedia lists of stubs were offered for users to look through:

• Morphology - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linguistic_morphology_stubs
  
• Phonetics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Phonetics_stubs
  
• Syntax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Syntax_stubs
  
  

Update reports were made:

• Biolinguistics - addition by Dr. Anna-Maria Di Sciullo, University of Québec at Montréal
  
• List of linguists - additions by Oliver Stegen, SIL
  
• R.M.R. Hall - created by Procrastinatrix
• Yaghan language - updated by Jess Tauber, Oakland, NJ
  
• Tamil language - to be updated by Dr. Sanford Steever and Dr. E. Annamalai
  
• Rochelle Lieber - created by Patricia Irwin, New York University
  
  

22 October 2007: In our fourth call for volunteers (see the full text), we asked subscribers to focus on sociolinguistics stubs, and suggested a list of short articles to update.

The following recent reports were made:

• New York dialect - update by Dr. Michael Newman, Queens College (CUNY)
  
• An offer from Milos Rancic to help coordinate efforts by improving the Sociolinguistics articles in the Serbian language Wikipedia. He has been an active Wikipedian since 2003.
• An offer to update some phonetics and phonology stubs from Lukasz Mokrzycki, Adam Mickiewicz University.
  

13 November 2007: The LINGUIST fifth call (see the full text) highlighted phonetics and phonology stubs that are in need of references and expansion of content.

Since November's call, we would like to thank the following subscriber for their responses:

• An offer to update Fijian language by Kilu von Prince, Technical University Berlin
• Caribbean languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Languages_of_the_Caribbean - Jo-Anne Ferreira, University of the West Indies, Mona, is organizing an impressive project to check, revise, and complete more than 45 articles already in Wikipedia related to languages of the Caribbean, many of which are endangered. Categories include indigenous languages, official languages, creole languages (English-, French-, Spanish-, Dutch-, and Portuguese-based), and immigrant languages. In addition, the project will expand existing biographies and create new ones of prominent linguists working in Caribbean languages. The Caribbean Indigenous and Endangered Languages (CIEL) website is a UNESCO/UWI-sponsored project.

19 December 2007: The LINGUIST sixth call (see the full text)highlighted 40 morphology stubs needing expansion of content and inclusion of references.

We would like to thank the following subscribers who have responded since November's call:

• An offer from Dennis Preston, Michigan State University, to distribute the previous appeal on sociolinguistics. He also offered to update the article on the Linguistic Society of America.
• An offer from Malgorzata Deron, Adam Mickiewicz University, to update these diverse articles: origin of language, analytic language, fusional language, amelioration with regard to semantic change, code-switching, calque, and certain affixes.
• A submission from John Goldsmith, University of Chicago, updating article on autosegmental phonology.
• An offer from Kemp Williams of IBM Global Name Recognition to write an article on computational onomastics

March 2008 - Results of Project: LINGUIST's more than six-month's devotion to the Wikipedia Update Project concluded in early 2008 due to team members having other projects needing their attention. However, the results of this experimental project had some successes in spite of this short period. It met the project's first goal to raise awareness within the linguistics community of the need to critically examine Wikipedia articles and help keep them updated. Secondly, it was able to bring about some specific changes, additions, and mergers of articles, and helped in the creation of several new ones. The overall results of LINGUIST's efforts are reported in a "Letter to Subscribers" that appeared as part of its spring Fund Drive 2008 (see full text).

In closing, the LINGUIST team is extremely grateful to its subscribers for their willingness to participate in what we hope will be a long continuing effort to improve Wikipedia articles in languages and linguistics for the good of the community.

Requests for Attention

To sign up to write, edit or update an article listed below so that others know you are working on it, or to suggest a page that should be on the list, please email Hannah Morales.

Bios of Linguists

• Ayo Bamgbose, article needed
• Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, Dr. Joachim Mugdan, University of Muenster will make corrections
• Attash Durrani,(computational linguistics),Center of Excellence for Urdu Informatics
• Jane Hill (anthropological linguistics), article needed
• Ruth Kempson, article needed
• D. Robert Ladd (phonology), article needed
• Ilse Lehiste (phonetics), article needed
• Rochelle Lieber, Patricia Irwin, New York University will write
• Ronald Macaulay (sociolinguistics), article needed
• April MacMahon (historical linguistics), article needed
• Mike MacMahon (phonetics, phonology), article needed
• Norma Mendoza-Denton (sociolinguistics), article needed
• Miriam Meyerhoff (sociolinguistics), article needed
• Lesley Milroy (sociolinguistics), article needed
• Salikoko Mufwene, expand existing article
• Lawrence Obafemi, article needed
• Awobuluyi Oladele, article needed
• Jeremy Smith (historical linguistics), article needed
• Jane Stuart-Smith (sociolinguistics), article needed

Languages

• Navajo language - Dr. Joyce McDonough, University of Rochester will edit
  
• Tamil language - Dr. Sanford Steever and Dr. E. Annamalai will update

Contact

Please feel free to contact me (Hannah Morales) by leaving a message on Linguistlist's talk page, or sending an email to hannah [at] linguistlist [dot] org.

External Links

LINGUIST List Homepage
LINGUIST's role on Wikipedia