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Re: translation needed

From:Melissa Phong <melissap@...>
Date:Thursday, October 21, 1999, 19:34
Charles Eichner replied to Ed:

>Hey, even linguists need hobbies. Just don't expect me to take such >frivolous hobbies seriously.=20
Is there such a thing as a "serious hobby"? Isn't the whole point of a hobb= y=20 its frivolousness? What is he talking about?
>>One might as well object to anyone painting new paintings because it >>is "frivolous" to do so, in a world where old Renaissance masterworks >>may be crumbling for lack of restorative work... Or object to anyone >>writing new books when there are ancient manuscripts which need to be >>photographed and catalogued.
>Your analogies are massively flawed. A more direct analogy would be an >art restorer who spends his time "researching" and analyzing the art >techniques used in Atlantis and how they would be restored, if they >existed.
This analogy sucks. But, I kind of see where he's coming from now. He's=20 gotten it into his head that we're all professional linguists. I am not a=20 linguist. I will never be a linguist. I do not want to be a linguist. And=20 if I was to try and document some dying language, the real linguists would=20 probably laugh themselves silly. All that aside, let's say I was a linguist. So what? It's a job and what a=20 linguist gets paid to do is distinct from what they choose to do in their=20 "spare time." That's a distinction he doesn't seem to get. He seems to be=20 under the impression that linguists shouldn't have spare time, that they=20 should devote their whole being to "proper" areas of study. That's like bei= ng=20 upset that a basketball player spends his off-season coaching kids at a cam= p,=20 rather than learning new plays and honing his own skills.
>Let me give you a concrete, realworld example. Comedy Central >channel's "The Daily Show" presented the story of a librarian from the >Library of Congress. The story was presented completely deadpan, >because sometimes truth is funnier than fiction. The story covered the >librarian's personal avocation, "The Library of Erotica." <snip> Was this=20 >guy serious? Hell yes. He went on and on about >the scholarly aspects of his work. But it is obvious to everyone >(EXCEPT himself) that he's just another otaku who is obsessed with >porn.
Okay, this seems to be some of the problem. Does he honestly think we see=20 ourselves as scientific researchers? Yes, languages are researched, but its= =20 done from an *artistic* standpoint. Like any artistic study science is a=20 part. For example, if you are studying paintings you talk about perspectiv= e,=20 which is a mathematical concept. That doesn't mean you're doing scientific=20 research. You're still studying the painting to appreciate its artistry.=20
>>If there is anyone who has ever made time for the hobby of language >>construction by neglecting work they would otherwise have done >>cataloguing dying languages, I would be very surprised. And yet, if >>that is not the case, your complaint is utterly vacuous.
>I used it merely as an example. Life is too short to waste time >researching non-existent things. Even as an exercise in abstraction, >it needs SOME sort of basis in reality. Excuse me if I don't believe >in elves or talking dinosaurs.
Life is too short--who is he to decide what is a waste of time for other=20 people? Golf seems pretty boring to me, but I'm not going to tell somebody=20 who chooses to spend their Saturday perfecting their swing that they are=20 wasting their time and they should be writing papers on aerodynamics instea= d.=20 I don't believe in elves or talking dinosaurs either, but examining how a=20 language spoken by elves or dinosaurs would be different helps pinpoint how= =20 humans think about language and how it affects their thoughts and their=20 culture. <the rest snipped as it seems to be a rant about criminal activity that has= =20 no bearing on anything> =20 Unless he's trying to say that conlangers are=20 stopping real languages from being studied and preserved because we take=20 away resources, which is totally fallacious. Marc Okrand's inventing Klingo= n=20 did not harm any "real-world" language and not inventing it wouldn't have=20 helped one either. In fact the opposite is true, my interest in conlanging=20 has forced me to learn a lot about foreign languages that I never would hav= e=20 known otherwise. Liss