Re: Ethnologue exercise (was: Conlang StandardLanguagesv.Dialects)

CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
> [(a)] CHINESE, MANDARIN (MANDARIN, GUANHUA, BEIFANG FANGYAN,
>    NORTHERN CHINESE, GUOYU) [CHN] [(b)] 836,000,000 in mainland China,
>    70% of the population; including 8,602,978 Hui (1990 census); [(c)]
>885,000,000 in all
>    countries. 1,042,482,187 all Han in China (1990 census). Covers all
>of mainland
>    China north of the Changjiang River, [....] Also in Taiwan,
>Singapore, Malaysia, [....].
>    Sino-Tibetan, Chinese. [(d)] Dialects: HUABEI GUANHUA (NORTHERN
>MANDARIN),
>    XIBEI GUANHUA (NORTHWESTERN MANDARIN), XINAN GUANHUA
>    [....]. [(e)] Official language taught in all schools. [(f)] The Hui
>are non-Turkic, [....]
>    [(g)] The grammar is basically Altaic or Tibetan, while the
>vocabulary and phonology is
>    basically Northwestern Mandarin, or a relexified variety of Tibetan.
>More investigation
>    is needed. [(h)] Typology: SVO, SOV. Hui: agriculturalists (rural),
>traders (urban). [(i)]
>    Traditional Chinese religion, Buddhist, Muslim (Hui), Jewish. Braille
>Bible portions. Braille
>    Scripture in progress. Bible 1874-1983. NT 1857-1981. Bible portions
>1864-1986.
>    <http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/Chin.html#CHN>
>
>I've cut out a lot of detail unimportant for making an entry.  The
>critical points (which I've
>noted in brackets above), for this entry, seemed to me to be:
>
>(a) The name(s) of the language.  There may be several of these,
>depending on dialect,
>region or culture or other historical factors.   The Ethnologue also has
>a set of three-letter
>codes which are unique identifiers for purposes of cataloguing them.  You
>may choose to
>have your own if you want;  one would presumably have to go check to see
>if it's already
>used.
SAALANGAL (APALIM,  SAALAPALIM) [SAA] Estimated 70,000 speakers in the
Alinyahinsaal archipelago. Territory includes the islands Hayawsaal,
Alinyasaal, Lambaksaal, and Pakusaal. DIALECTS: Tasok (Harbor), Kayno
(Lake), Lambaksaal (Palm Island), Alinyasaal (Green Island), Eastern. Main
dialect is the Tasok dialect of the capital city.The Tasok dialect is the
dialect used in education, government, and business. Language isolate.
>


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