Terms of Use

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This electronic version of Ethnologue: Languages of the World is intended for non-commercial scholarly research and educational use. You may make copies of portions of these documents for research or educational purposes in accordance with the SIL Fair Use Guidelines free of charge and without further permission.

Republication or commercial use of the Ethnologue (and its indexes) is expressly prohibited without the written consent of SIL International. You may make links to these pages (with proper attribution), but you may not mirror (i.e., place copies of) these pages, in part or whole, on your site without the written consent of SIL International. To request permission,  email the Request for Permission to Publish SIL Copyright Materials form to International Administrator Copyright Permissions.

Terms of Use for Language Code Download Tables

In the interest of fostering the use of ISO 639-3 for the uniform identification of all the world's languages in information systems, SIL International releases certain information from the Ethnologue database for use in the development of information systems, specifically, information that describes language identifiers in terms of alternate names and countries where spoken. You are welcome to download the information as provided and incorporate the supplied tables into your own database application. You are authorized to include the information in a product that you make available to the public (even on a commercial basis), provided that you:

  • cite SIL International and this web site (www.ethnologue.com) as the source of the information,
  • do not modify or extend the codes other than those set aside for local use (i.e. qaa to qtz), 
  • do not redistribute the code tables for download, and
  • use only the data in the tables and no other data posted on this site. Other information on this site should be accessed by supplying a link like the following (where abc is an ISO 639-3 code):
    http://www.ethnologue.com/language/abc

SIL International periodically updates the supplied information, and intends this site to be the sole distribution source in order to ensure uniformity of versions. You are not authorized to redistribute the code tables for download, whether in the exact form they were obtained from this site or in a modified form you have developed, without the written consent of SIL International (see instructions above).

Terms of Use for Maps

These maps may be used in reports, presentations, displays, and other uses as long as they are not altered. They have "watermarks" on them to remind users that these are for private use and not for distribution to others, either as printouts or as computer files, except as noted below.

You MAY print or post copies of the JPEG versions of these maps if (1) the copyright and "watermark" are not removed, (2) the graphic is not modified, and (3) no more than three of these JPEGs are used in any one publication or internet site. Any other use requires prior written permission from SIL International.

These maps may not be displayed on an internet site containing adult or other content objectionable to SIL International.

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Ethnologue.com does not send unsolicited or "spam" e-mail and does not sell, rent, or trade its e-mail lists to third parties.

If you supply us with your postal or email address, you will receive the information for which you provided us your address. If you have any questions or concerns regarding our privacy policy, please e-mail info-sil@sil.org or mail your question to us at 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236.

External Links disclaimer

Some links in the Ethnologue point to documents and sites which are not located within the ethnologue.com or sil.org Internet domains, and are therefore not managed or controlled by SIL. These links are included to point the reader to other possibly relevant resources.

A link to a document or site other than those included within the ethnologue.com or sil.org domains does not necessarily imply that SIL International

  • endorses the organization(s) or person(s) providing them,
  • agrees with the ideas expressed, or
  • attests to the correctness, factuality, appropriateness, or legality of the contents.