ELL: an update on the Transparent Language Systems offer

[Scott DeLancey]

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Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 12:23:50 -0800 (PST)
From: Scott DeLancey <delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu>
To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
Subject: Re: ELL: an update on the Transparent Language Systems offer
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On Thu, 1 Apr 1999, David Harris wrote:

> Presumably, the Navajos or the Cherokees could figure out a way to raise
> that kind of money. But the money could presumably be put to better use on
> improving the living conditions of tribe members.

And, if they or any other tribe had $100,000 to spend on language
maintenance, there are much better ways it could be spent.

> What do others think about this? I know that many on the list don't feel the
> technology would be very beneficial to the speech communities, anyway. But
> I'd be interested in hearing some opinions. Am I wrong to think that
> $100,000 is an awful lot of money?

It's a ridiculously unrealistic amount for most of the communities
that I'm in contact with or know anything about.  In fact it's
probably only realistic in this context to talk about communities
in the U.S. and Canada, or Europe--we can hardly imagine an
Akha community, for example, or any minority community anywhere in Asia or
Africa or South America, coming up with a $100,000 lump sum for any
purpose.  But for U.S. tribal programs that I'm in contact with, this
is still completely unrealistic.  Some tribal language programs
operate on an annual budget of $100,000 or less--or don't operate
at all because there simply isn't any money.  Even the best-funded
programs I know of couldn't spent $100,000 at a shot without
giving up half or more of their language maintenance activities for
a year.  Possibly a tribe that really wanted these toys might try
and write a grant for them--but I would devoutly hope that any
granting agency would have a more realistic set of priorities.

Scott DeLancey
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403, USA

delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu
http://www.uoregon.edu/~delancey/prohp.html



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