TheLinguasphere Observatory (orthe Observatoire, based on its original French and legal title:Observatoire Linguistique) is a non-profit transnationalresearch network, devoted (alongside related programs) to the gathering, study, classification, editing and free distribution online of the updatable text (initially in English) of a fully indexed and comprehensiveLinguasphere Register of the World's Languages, and Speech Communities.
The Observatoire was created inQuebec in 1983 and was subsequently established and registered inNormandy as a non-profit association under the honorary presidency of the lateLéopold Sédar Senghor, a French-language poet and the first president ofSenegal. Its founding director is David Dalby, former director of theInternational African Institute and emeritus reader in the University of London, and its first research secretary was Philippe Blanchet, a Provençal-language poet currently serving as Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Rennes. Since 2010, the deputy director and webmaster of the Observatoire has been Pierrick le Feuvre, with the chairman of its research council being Roland Breton, emeritus professor at the University of Paris VIII. The Observatoire's research hub is currently based in the preserved county of Dyfed, Wales and, in the European Union, inNormandy, France. Its title inWelsh isWylfa Ieithoedd, literally the "Observatory (of) languages", together with its publishing program (in Cymraeg or "Welsh" = cy.Gwasg y Byd Iaith, i.e. "Press (of) the World (of) Language").
The Observatoire has developed an innovative scheme ofphilological classification, coding all living and recorded languages within a global referential framework or "linguascale". This Linguascale Framework uses a decimal structure (see below) to record both genetic and geographic categories of relationship (termedphylozones andgeozones, respectively).
In 1999/2000, the Observatoire published its first 2-volumeLinguasphere Register of the World's Languages and Speech Communities.[1] Reviews were published byEdward J. Vajda inLanguage and by Anthony P. Grant inJournal of the Royal Anthropological Society.[2]
The Observatoire has now prepared a revised edition of the Linguasphere Register from 2010, the first of a projected series of regular updates at 10-year intervals. The current edition(LS-2010), comprising substantial materials from the foundation edition of 2000, is published online from 2011 as a freely available public resource and an online data-base, compiled and co-ordinated by David Dalby and Pierrick le Feuvre. Provision is made for the online gathering of additional and improved data, and for the open discussion of proposals and criticisms.
From 2001 until December 2005, the Linguasphere Observatory was actively involved in collaboration with the British Standards InstitutionBSI Group and withISO/TC 37in the design and development of a four-letter (alpha-4) code covering—potentially—every recorded language variety in the world. The Observatoire was not, however, associated with or responsible for the finalISO 639-6 standard which was a partial result of this collaboration, approved and published by ISO in 2009. It is the policy of the Observatoire that its on-going independent work on language coding should also be complementary to and supportive of the ISO 639 international standards,
The Observatoire expresses its praise and gratitude to the parallel pioneering work of Barbara Grimes, with her husband Joseph, in her position - based in Hawaii until her retirement from 1996 - as the creative Editor of the Summer Institute of Linguistics'Ethnologue: Languages of the World.
TheLinguascale framework is a referential system covering all languages, as published in theLinguasphere Register in 2000 and subsequently refined in 2010. It comprises a flexible coding formula which seeks to situate each language and dialect within the totality of the world's living and recorded languages, having regard to ongoing linguistic research.
The first part of this linguascale is thedecimal classification referred to above, consisting of alinguasphere key of two numerals denoting the relevant phylozone or geozone: from00. to99. This provides a systematic numerical key for the initial classification of any of the world's languages, following the principles set out in theLinguasphere Register. The first numeral of the key represents one of the ten referentialsectors into which the world's languages are initially divided. The sector can either be aphylosector, in which the constituent languages are considered to be in a diachronic relationship one with another, or ageosector, in which languages are grouped geographically rather than historically.
The second numeral is used to represent the tenzones into which each geosector is divided for referential purposes. The component zones, like the sectors, are described as eitherphylozones orgeozones, based on the nature of the relationship among their constituent languages: either historical or geographical.
The second part of the linguascale consists of three capital letters (majuscules): from-AAA- to-ZZZ-. Each zone is divided into one or moresets, with each set being represented by the first majuscule of this three-letter (alpha-3) component. Each set is divided into one or morechains (represented by the second majuscule) and each chain is into one or morenets (represented by the third majuscule). The division of the languages of a zone into sets, chains and nets is based on relative degrees of linguistic proximity, as measured in principle by approximate proportions of shared basic vocabulary. Geozones are on average divided into more sets than phylozones because relationships among languages within the latter are by definition more obvious and much closer.
The third and final part of the linguascale consists of up to three lowercase letters (minuscules), used to identify a language or dialect with precision: fromaaa tozzz. The first letter of this sequence represents anouter unit (preferred from 2010 to the original term of "outer language", to avoid the shifting and often emotive applications of the terms "language" and "dialect"). Theinner units andlanguage varieties that may comprise any outer unit are coded using a second, and wherever necessary a third minuscule letter.
The application of the linguascale may be illustrated with the concrete examples below, chosen from within theEnglish language.
For example,
52-ABA, where5= represents theIndo-European phylosector,52= represents theGermanic phylozone,52-A represents theNorsk+ Frysk set (a compound-name chosen to cover the contents of the Germanic phylozone),52-AB represents theEnglish+ Anglo-Creole chain, and52-ABA is theEnglish net. Within this net, the outer units are:52-ABA-a –Scots+ Northumbrian.52-ABA-b – "Anglo-English" (the traditional localised varieties of southern Great Britain and also Ireland).52-ABA-c – Global English (varieties of modern English as spoken and written around the world).52-ABA-abb is theGeordie traditional variety: belonging to52-ABA-a Scots+ Northumbrian outer language, and52-ABA-ab Northumbrian.52-ABA-bco is theNorfolk traditional variety: belonging to52-ABA-b "Anglo-English" outer unit, and specifically to52-ABA-bc Southern (British) traditional English.52-ABA-cof covers the range of (non-creolised) Nigerian English : belonging to52-ABA-c Global English outer unit, and52-ABA-co West-African English. Nigerian English is thus distinguished from the often overlapping52-ABB-bf Enpi (or "NP", from the abbreviation of so-called "Nigerian Pijin"): belonging to52-ABB Anglo-Creole net, and52-ABB-b Wes-kos (West Coast Anglo-Creole).A practical application of theLinguasphere Register and its linguascale in the study of a complex urban linguistic environment has been as the referential framework for successive surveys of over 200 languages other than English spoken by plurilingual children at state schools in London (representing just under 40% of the total number of children attending), as edited in 2000 by Baker and Eversley and in 2010 by Eversley et al.[3]
In Paris, from 1987, the Observatoire linguistique created a bilingual exhibitionLangues de la Liberté / Languages of Liberty, tracing the transnational development of certain basic concepts of personal freedom through the interaction of English and French, rather than by the action of any one nation. At the outset of a series of 34 illustrated triptychs, attention was drawn to the historical role of other transnational languages in the development of such concepts, including Greek and German.[4]
The exhibition was sponsored by the government of a bilingual nation, Canada, by the internationalfrancophone Agence (ACCT) and by the region ofHaute-Normandie. It was inaugurated in Paris at theCentre Georges Pompidou on 6 June 1989, and presented there throughout the summer of 1989 as the official Canadian contribution to the bicentenary celebrations of the French Revolution.
At the subsequent presentation of this bilingual exhibition at the Hôtel de Région in Rouen (Haute-Normandie), from 23 September to 21 October 1989, the Observatoire linguistique organised the first public display of the only surviving contemporary copy of the vernacular (and arguably pre-Latin) text of England'sMagna Carta, written in 13th century French.
Thanks to continued support from Canada, the exhibition was subsequently presented by the Observatoire in Belgium and England, at the Palais des Congrès inLiège and at theCommonwealth Institute in London in 1990, and finally in Australia, atOld Parliament House, Canberra in May 1991.
In the context of the need to design a plurilingual framework of ethics for a future planetary society, the Observatoire has announced its intention to return to the transnational theme ofMagna Carta in 2015, on the occasion of the 8th centenary of the signing of its formal Latin version atRunnymede in 2020.
The motto of the Observatoire linguistique dates from 1990—in French:Dans la galaxie des langues, la voix de chaque personne est une étoile (translated into English as above).
The Observatoire adopted these words as its guiding philosophy on the occasion of the first series of debates organised by the Observatoire linguistique in 1990–1991, atFleury-sur-Andelle in Haute-Normandie, atMaillane in Provence and atHuy in Wallonie, sponsored by each of the relevant regions, on the subject ofNos langues et l'unité de l'Europe ("Our languages and the unity of Europe"). The guest of honour at the first of these debates wasAndré Martinet (1908–1999), doyen of trans-Atlantic linguistics.
From the year 2000UNESCO adopted and adapted the Observatoire's motto in the form: "In the galaxy of languages, each word is a star".[citation needed]
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