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editorial</title></head><body>
<div>Excellent comments, thank you, Claire and all. All these
discussions and comments lead us to an important task for us: we need
to make the general public, as well as those who have influence on
policy making including media people, aware of the ethnolinguistic or
minority language situations, of the cultural and intellectual values
of languages, and of sheer pleasure (not pain) of having diverse
languages among us. To begin with, the following organizations
may be the places to do such work -- in addition there are a number
of excellent conferences organized (e.g. on language policies). </div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000">UNESCO has supported a number
of cultural preservation projects throughout the world. They
have also encouraged preservation and development of minority
languages. Contact:<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Madame Noriko Aikawa, Chief of Section<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Intangible Cultural Heritage Section<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>UNESCO<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>7, Place de Fontenoy<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>75700 Paris<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>France<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Tel: 33-1 45 68 45 19; Fax: 33-1 42 73 04 01<br>
<br>
Deutsche Gesellschaft f殲 Sprachwissenschaft. Arbeitsgruppe Bedrohte
Sprachen. [Contact: Hans-J殲gen Sasse, Chair, University of K嗟n.
<am015@rsl.rrz.Uni-Koeln.de>]</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000">Purpose is to draw attention
to endangered languages and their documentation; to promote field
work in graduate curricula; and to develop sources of support for
endangered language field work.</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000"><br>
Foundation for Endangered Languages. [Contact: Dr. Nicholas Ostler,
President, Batheaston Villa, 172 Bailbrook Lane, Bath, BA1 7AA,
England; Phone +44-1225-85-2865; Fax: +44-1225-85-9258;
<nostler@chibcha.demon.co.uk>]<br>
The Foundation supports, enables, and assists the documentation,
protection and promotion of endangered languages.<br>
<br>
TERRALINGUA. [Contact: Dr. Luisa Maffi, President, Department of
Psychology, Northwestern University, 102 Swift Hall, 2029 Sheridan
Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208-2710, <maffi@nwu.edu>; Dr. David
Harmon, Secretary, The George Wright Society, P.O. Box 65, Hancock,
Michigan 49930-0065, <gws@portage1.portup.com>]</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000">TERRALINGUA is the name of a
nonprofit, nongovernmental international organization devoted to
preserving the worldユs linguistic diversity, and to investigating
parallels and links between biological and cultural
diversity.</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#000000"><b><br>
</b>The Endangered Language Fund. [Dr. Doug Whalen, President;
Department of Linguistics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520;
<whalen@haskins.yale.edu>]<br>
Nonprofit organization devoted to the scientific study of endangered
languages; the support of community-initiated preservation efforts;
the broader dissemination of the linguistic results of these
efforts.</font><br>
<font face="Times" color="#000000"></font></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Dear all,<br>
<br>
> Just a few comments:<br>
> 1. we can be definitely sure that more people "out
there" (in the "real"<br>
> world, not in this list) prefer Bic Mac to grub. We have an
objective proof:<br>
> if more people wanted grub, McDonald's would be selling grub.
Therefore:<br>
<br>
My original tongue/grub-in-cheek posting was taken much more
seriously<br>
than I intended! and I probably should have admitted from the start
that<br>
I'm a vegetarian. While it usually won't offend anyone if I refuse a
big<br>
mac, refusing a hunk of subcutaneous turtle fat or <insert organic
matter<br>
of choice> would have been very rude to the old ladies who saved
it<br>
specially for me (ultimately the main reason a lot of us end up
eating<br>
weird stuff, right?)<br>
<br>
<br>
> 3. I wouldn't want Bourdieu to teach me what "free
market" means. Nobody has<br>
> ever said that a market decision always works to the best
interest of those<br>
> who make it. Certainly not Adam Smith and the liberal thinkers.
We make bad<br>
> decisions everyday - we buy things which don't work or which we
discover we<br>
> could have bought for a better price. But our decisions are
still free - we<br>
> can be persuaded to buy unnecessary things, OK. But to be
persuaded to do X<br>
<br>
Richard Trudgen has written an excellent book on this sort of thing
in<br>
Australia (particularly concerning Yolngu speakers from Arnhemland,
but it<br>
applies equally well to many other parts of the country too); it's
called</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>"Why warriors lie down and
die."<br>
<br>
Someone made a comment in a recent posting about separating the
languages<br>
from the speakers, and asked why we should preserve the languages if
the<br>
speakers themselves don't want to speak them. A lot of Aboriginal
people<br>
I've talked to have said things along the lines of their parents gave
up<br>
their languages and talked English to their children because they
thought<br>
it would give them better opportunities to get a job and have a
better<br>
life. It didn't work because most of the other factors of
disadvantage are<br>
still there - terrible health conditions, terrible nutrition,
terrible<br>
educational opportunities, very limited employment opportunities
(because<br>
of the above), psychologically often very stressful living
conditions<br>
(alcohol abuse, domestic violence, very high youth suicide and the
like).<br>
So the opportunities for their kids aren't considerably better,
AND<br>
they've lost their language and culture, with nothing much to replace
it.<br>
<br>
Most of these languages are moribund and nothing is going to make
young<br>
kids suddenly start speaking them in the near future. However, there
is<br>
nothing to say that sometime in the future such communities won't
have an<br>
interest in language revival. (See, for example, Rob Amery's account
of<br>
Kaurna language revival.) Surely it's in both linguists' and
communities'<br>
best interests to do as thorough job as possible, In the community I
was<br>
working in last year, for example, there were about 30 speakers of
the<br>
language, all over 55. They were pushing the language documentation
and<br>
revival project; with a few exceptions most of the community didn't
care<br>
(they had no objection to the project taking place, they just
weren't<br>
interested in it).<br>
<br>
Now, neither language documentation projects or any language
revival<br>
projects have much economic "value", but I believe it's a
very big mistake<br>
to measure things like this in purely economic terms. The
preservation of<br>
historic buildings, for instance, makes little economic sense;
funding for<br>
the arts, the National Portrait Gallery, for example, are an
economic<br>
waste of time. If we didn't spend money on things like this we'd
be<br>
"better off" ecomonically, but not culturally.<br>
<br>
So, if we choose to view these things purely economically and decide
that<br>
it isn't "worth it" to preserve in some form the many
highly endangered<br>
languages we can still do something about, we'd better be damn sure
we're<br>
doing the right thing, and that we're not going to decide in 40 years
time<br>
that we really could have afforded it, after all.<br>
<br>
Claire<br>
<br>
<br>
-----------------------------<br>
Claire Bowern<br>
Department of Linguistics<br>
Harvard University<br>
305 Boylston Hall<br>
Cambridge, MA, 02138<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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----</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div><br>
<br>
Akira Y. Yamamoto<br>
The University of Kansas<br>
Department of Anthropology<br>
Fraser Hall 622<br>
1415 Jayhawk Blvd.<br>
Lawrence, KS 66045-7556<br>
Phone: (785) 864-2645<br>
FAX: (785) 864-5224<br>
Anthropology: http://www.ukans.edu/~kuanth/<br>
Linguistics: http://www.linguistics.ukans.edu/<br>
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