Linguistic Matls IN the language of study

[Susan Penfield]

All,
I think the whole question of categories is something worth discussing. The
Mohave and Chemehuevi communities I am working with repeatedly requests
dictionaries organized by theme (or concept). Ideally, though much more
difficult for languages with few remaining speakers I think, the themes
would be determined by speakers (and not representative of English). For
instance, what would speakers include under a category like 'living things'
? I'm just guessing here, but I can imagine that it might include things
that English speakers don't consider 'living' --

The importance of this is two-fold. 1) it captures traditional categories
--hence adds to language documentation and 2) it is a more user-friendly
presentation for community members to access.  I'm looking at a new software
that essentially creates a Thesaurus of this type.

Other thoughts?
Susan

On 2/25/06, d_z_o <dzo at bisharat.net> wrote:
>
> Hi Mia, Back in Futa Jalon, Guinea in the mid-80's I think I saw a
> grammar of Pular in Pular. I know I saw a monolingual dictionary in
> Pular, done by a grad student in linguistics, typed and stenciled a
> few years earlier (I regret that I couldn't get a copy and hope that
> there is at least one still extant! Unfortunately don't have the
> reference handy).
>
> There may be more of such materials in some major languages of
> Africa - there is a university in SW Nigeria for instance where one
> can write theses in Yoruba, and it wouldn't surprise me if one has
> pertained to the language itself. This should be possible to verify
> if of interest.
>
> One last point is tangential, but when studying Chinese, I got the
> impression that the grammar as presented conformed to Western
> categories, whereas in a few instances I thought the feature of
> Chinese in question was more similar to an African language I know
> (one example is "present - past" vs. "accomplished -
> nonaccomplished" in verb tenses - the latter of which helped me
> understand the use of "le" better than the attempts to explain in
> terms of present & past). This in turn made me wonder if the Chinese
> materials in Chinese use original Chinese categories or whether they
> too conform to Western categories but in translation. So that might
> be another level of analysis beneath the language of presentation
> (but certainly you've thought of that already).
>
> Don
>
>
> Quoting Mia Kalish <MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US>:
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> >
> > Does anyone know of any cases where the results of linguistic
> study of
> > Indigenous language have been codified IN the language of study?
> That would
> > be a grammar actually written in, for example, Navajo or
> Jicarilla, rather
> > than in English, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, etc?
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks for your help. I am currently writing in my dissertation
> that there
> > are no known cases. . . . I've never seen one, but maybe in Maori?
> Hawaiian?
> > Quecha?
> >
> >
> >
> > Mia
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>



--
Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D.

Department of English
Affiliate faculty: Department of Linguistics
and the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Program
American Indian Language Development Institute
Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836
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