informant:
(plural: ‘informants‘; pronunciation: the letter ‘i’ rhymes with the letter ‘i’ in “ink” — for the right pronunciation, please click here)
a person who gives information, especially someone who gives details of his language, social customs, etc. to someone/foreigner who is studying it;
an informer — a person who gives out (reveals) information about another, usually one criminal against another criminal, for money, (next entry → →)
an informant (R), a local senior citizen, giving information to Maia Andreasson, a member of NORMS team studying Danish language in Denmark
Though these words, informant and informer, are interchangeable, i.e. one word can be used for the other, there is some subtle difference between them, especially when talking about a local person who gives details of his language, social customs, etc. to some foreigner.
The number of European explorers in the strange and inhospitable remote places in Africa and Australia depended greatly on the local informants who protected their foreign visitors from natural and man-made dangers besides giving them valuable information.
Some governments take the help of local employees in remote places as informants in collecting accurate data for census.
