Research Guides: LIN 202: Language Ambassador Project Assignment (Fall 2023): Home

Using this Research Guide

This guide is intended to point you to websites, books, periodicals, and databases that will help you to complete your Language Ambassador Project research projects for LIN 202. Feel free to contact subject librarian Patrick Williams if you have questions.

Websites for Language Research

Ethnologue
A reference for making informed decisions in every language context worldwide. Choose your "stable" or "endangered" language here and locate its external resources.
Glottolog
Comprehensive reference information for the world's languages, especially the lesser known languages. Locate additional external resources on your language here.

In some cases, external resources or references listed in Ethnologue & Glottolog will only include citations, and will not have direct links to full text. In those cases, take the title of the article and search in Libraries Search to see if we have access.

World Atlas of Language Structure
The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a large database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials (such as reference grammars) by a team of 55 authors.
Endangered Languages Project
A worldwide collaboration to strengthen endangered languages; catalogue contains information on 3466 languages. This is the one with the very useful map to cross-reference with the Ethnologue list.
UNESCO World Atlas of Languages
The World Atlas of Languages is an interactive and dynamic online tool that documents different aspects and features of language status in countries and languages around the world. It aims to provide a detailed record of languages as communicative tools and knowledge resources in their sociocultural and socio-political contexts.

Databases for Language Research in Academic Journals & other sources

Primary Databases for Linguistic Studies Research

LLBA: Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
Index and abstracts of articles, books, and dissertations covering linguistics, discourse analysis, phonetics, literary theory, semantics and more.
Linguistics Abstracts Online : LABS
Index and abstracts to scholarly articles published in linguistics journals.

Resources for research citations on the open web (cut and paste article titles into SUMMON, linked below, for library access).

Other Library collections and subscription resources

PressReader
Current local, regional and international newspapers and magazines from over 100 countries in 60 languages, displayed in their original format and accessible by country, language, or title.

If you are having trouble finding mention of your language, consider searching Libraries Search to all databases simultaneously. This will include print and ebooks, news, popular content, video, and other sources you may not find elsewhere.