Re: Endangered-Languages-L forum at ANU
Marion GUNN (mgunn@irlearn.ucd.ie)
Tue, 13 Sep 1994 14:42:29 +0100
Dear Gary, I wish to state publicly I'm happy with ALL of your policies!
I belong to NAT-LANG because it supports local language movements. Since
my own work in that field generates a lot of e-mail, I look carefully at
any other list I am invited to join. The first thing I do is scrutinize
its existing membership (to ensure a fair sprinkling of Compuserves IDs,
AmericaOnlines, IrelandOnlines, etc.)--usually enough to help me decide!
A preponderance of ".EDU" addresses usually means heavy traffic of mixed
quality, mostly raising more questions than its membership can resolve.
More attractive are Australian, Canadian, or computer company addresses,
for example, Japanese or US firms who might help our native programmers,
because the needs of linguistic minorities are like those of any majority
group: practical, not theoretical. We are not short of mystics--we _are_
short of people who will roll up their sleeves and work alongside us, in
spite of our shortcomings, most of which we share with majority peoples.
Lakota, Gaelic, Inuit, etc., are healthy languages, not dying, and only
ENDANGERED by the encroachment of English. Studies undertaken by English
speakers into "the death of" perfectly viable languages have been found,
not surprisingly, to undermine aboriginal self-help groups. Pressurizing
a minority to participate in outsider-led scrutinies of their culture in
return for "grant aid" of some kind is demoralizing. A language is SAVED
when its speakers can go about their ordinary daily lives, freed of any
threat from a neighbouring culture. That is all most of us would ask.
How to save a language? Just facilitate its USE! Most speakers, if asked,
would rather the costs of studying them were invested in native industry.
If Endangered-Languages-L serves (like NAT-LANG, GAELIC-L, WELSH-L) as a
place where members of small linguistic communities can find each other,
that will be a great thing for all our languages. Please note the use of
"SMALL linguistic communities", instead of ENDANGERED, DISAPPEARING, etc.
--emotional tags which do not help, and tend to attract the wrong people!
Does NAT-LANG have a helpfile or FAQ on Inuktitut and related languages?
I could use one just now. In admiration of your continuing work, I say
"Mo ghraidhin thu/" (Irish Gaelic, untranslatable)
Megwetch,
Marion
MGUNN@IRLEARN.UCD.IE
[ NAT-LANG doesn't have much now in the way of a FAQ ("frequently-asked
questions") document at this point. I did mention the idea about the
creation of resource files on various languages, and Victor Golla sent
me a message indicating that he would like to use the SSILA files as
the basis of our efforts in this direction. If anyone has any ideas
as to what we need most in this area, please post a followup article
expressing your ideas. Thanks. --Gary (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us) ]