Re: translation needed

I felt compelled to reply.


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Ed doesn't know everything, but he hasn't figured that out yet.
Please break it to him gently.              edheil@postmark.net
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--- Forwarded Message ---
To: Ed Heil <edheil@...>
From: Ed Heil <edheil@...>
Subject: RE: translation needed
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 18:51:41 -0400

Actually, Chuck-o, I've spent some time reading that mailing list.  And in my

experience people who enjoy the aesthetic exercise of constructing languages
tend to be *more* aware of the problem of language death than other people
are, and tend to be more appreciative of the unique nuances of exotic
languages than other people are.  (Indeed, the most famous practicioners of
the art, Tolkien, M.A.R. Barker, and Marc Okrand, are or were all
professional
linguists themselves, with a respectable amount of real-world linguistics
work
to their credit.)

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.

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 guess I can only ask how you possibly justify spending time posting to
newsgroups when you could be spending your time preserving obscure
sub-dialects of Nez Pierce or something.

"Idiots" "unworthy of pity" who "waste their lives" indeed.  One could say
the
same of someone who makes such immensely poorly thought out comments as you
have here, sir.

Ed

>===== Original Message From Charles Eicher <ceicher@...> =====
><otaku rant warning>
>
>Jesus F. Christ! I thought I'd heard every variation of otaku-ism, but this
>takes the cake. I would like to point out that there are REAL languages that
are
>in sad need of study because they are going extinct, but instead, you idiots
are
>sitting around analysing KLINGON and ELVISH.
>
>I recently read a paper about a linguist studying the last two users of of a
>dying American Indian language. One man, who understood the written
language,
>but not the spoken one, was blind. The other could understand the spoken
>language, but not the written, but he was deaf. The language cannot be
recorded
>or studied, but if only ONE linguist had discovered the endangered status of
>this language before the two men became old and handicapped, the language
might
>not have died such an ignoble death.
>
>If only some of the energy you expend discussing these fictional languages
could
>be harnessed for something useful! But no, you would rather study something
that
>doesn't even exist. I cannot even feel pity for someone who wastes their
life
so
>frivolously.