Re: Saving endangered langs (was Re: Extrapolating languages)

--- Tristan McLeay <zsau@...> wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, Costentin Cornomorus
> wrote:
> > While I don't think we need get into
> politics, I don't think it has
> > anything to do with "capitalism" per se. It
> has to do with normal
> > people's (and monied people's) attitudes
> towards language. Most people
> > simply do not give a fiddlers fart for dying
> languages and do not see
> > any point whatsoever in saving or even
> documenting same. They might be
> > made to understand that it could be important
> to people descended from
> > that culture - but there's nothing stopping
> them from either learning
> > that language or doing the documentation
> themselves.
>
> Ah, but you forget: capitalism is marked by
> money.
Yes. Which, in itself, has nothing to do with the
matter at hand. If money really were it, we (the
US especially) would have catalogued and ensured
the preservation of every language on Earth. We
can certainly afford it!

> Without money in a
> monied society, you don't get to eat. If money
> wasn't the way to get food,
> more people would be willing to spend time
> documenting language.
I doubt it. Even poor people in the US live at a
standard much higher than real poor people in the
world at large. We have a large percentage of
"comfortable" people - people who do not worry
about their next meal or the roof over their
heads. We also have a goodly proportion of
wealthy people who literally have money to burn.

Yet, for some strange reason there are still
loads of languages unrecorded. Nope. It's not
just money.

> All I meant is
> that in capitalism, if the
> people with the money don't see the value of
> something, that it becomes
> worthless, even if the people without money see
> it as valuable.
Ah, now you're getting close: people have to see
the value in something. Americans in general are
very generous givers to charity for example - far
outgiving their European counterparts. We see
value in this, even when we can't write it off on
April 15. In general, Americans see no value in
preserving languages. Keep in mind that we also
see little value in learning others' languages
when we go abroad and see little value in the
general study of languages in schools.

There is a trend here...


> As to documenting ones own language, most
> people don't have the knowledge
> to know how to. I certainly don't, and I have
> an interest in Linguistics.
Something would be better than nothing!

> > > and linguists
> >
> > Agreed. Too many ducks, not enough hunters.
>
> What, so linguists are *killing* languages now?
> :P
? You can hunt without killing, you know.

> > The best thing you can do, as a nonlinguist,
> > is to LEARN.
> [I keep meaning to make mead. I had some at
> 0-week at uni last year and it
> was nice. Aeons better than beer, but that
> isn't hard :) ]
True, that!

I've tried my hand at ginger beer and koumiss
(milk beer?). The latter was quite good,
actually, though unhappily I had no mare milk to
hand! ;)

> > It, or any natural language you decide to
> learn and teach your
> > children, will be useful if it is spoken in a
> context. If I learn
> > Cornish and then always use it for prayer, my
> kids would pick up on
> > that and learn the Cornish in that context.
> Even if we only rarely use
> > it elsehow.
>
> What happens when your children grow up and
> become atheist?
That's their choice. Did I ever say this method
would guarantee future use? Nope. Same goes for
ANYTHING we teach our kids. They can choose to
take on those ideas or skills and use them - or
they can choose to leave them behind.

> > Well, you can always buy acid free, archival
> > paper. Or you could learn to write on
> parchment
> > or carve upon stone or write on metal
> plates...
>
> True. (Why do they put acid in paper anyway?
> There must be a reason.)
So that the books will rot away and the next
generation will have to buy new printings! ;)

> :) [Though I would solve the same problem in a
> different way; punishment
> does more harm then good.]
Depends on the crime and the punishment. And it's
debatable that punishment does more harm than
good!

Padraic.


=====
la cieurgeourea provoer mal trasfu ast meiyoer ke 'l andrext ben trasfu.


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