Re: CHAT: Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> Sally Caves wrote:
> > especially since they
> > require you also to name not only the language but the countries
> > in which it is "spoken."
>
> Why, Teonaht is spoken wherever it is that you live!  :-)  The US, I
> believe?  They don't make you give the numbers of speakers, do they?
Well, yeah... upstate New York, as a matter of fact... and by anybody
else who has ever been exposed to it or has borrowed words from it.
Like my sisters, my husband, and some of my friends.   But just to
be a straight man to your jest, here, heh heh... it's simply the
principle of the thing.  Not the inapplicability of the Declaration
to Teonaht, not the anachronism... it's just that it seems to be
making a mockery of a serious project.  The Human Rights people
are looking for actual cultures of people who participate in the
world and speak a language that may be overlooked by others or
in danger of dying out.  That speak to world diversity.

Such a thing could be attempted by the members of ENGLISC, where
Old English, like Latin, has already engaged in translation
projects promoting world understanding.  But I think the UD is
looking for living languages.  Not dead languages or solitary
languages that have been made up and none outside this list has
heard of.

However, I might be tempted! :)



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SALLY CAVES
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves (bragpage)
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html (T. homepage)
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/contents.html (all else)
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Niffodyr tweluenrem lis teuim an.
"The gods have retractible claws."
                                from _The Gospel of Bastet_
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