Alcove 9: An Annotated List of Reference Websites

Language and Linguistics

Ethnologue: Languages of the World
Web edition of a published reference source (LCCN 73646678) from the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). Users can browse by country to see what languages are spoken there; browse by language name; or use the Google-based site search. Includes a bibliography of SIL publications, searchable by keyword or browseable by author, country, or subject.

Index Translationum
Free online version of the "international bibliography of translations" from UNESCO (LCCN 50012446). Users can search by author, title, translator, original and target language, country of publication, and date. Users may also compile statistics from the database. Coverage begins in 1979; the database is updated quarterly.

The Linguist List
Massive site directory and search engine for online resources in linguistics (listservs, full-text publications, blogs, software, non-Roman fonts, and many others). The Ask a Linguist service, staffed by volunteer specialists, allows researchers to submit questions and browse a list of previous questions. Maintained by Eastern Michigan University and Wayne State University, with mirror sites worldwide. The site itself is free, but encourages donations and may link to some commercial websites.

AltaVista Translation Service ("Babelfish")
Translation of Web documents to and from English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Portuguese; type in a URL or some text and click on the "translate" button. The translation is approximate in most cases. Works best with Internet Explorer.