Rare Find: a New Language (fwd link)

[Jennifer Teeter]

Dear Slavomir

Yes indeed. Very similar to the faulty and bigoted use of discovery in
reference to the Americas. I am still skeptical though. Did the local Koro
speakers just call their language the same name or did they really just
think it was the same language? I don't think there is enough information in
this article to know, and maybe the author of the article doesn't have all
the info either, or isn't quoting directly despite the quotation marks.
This has happened to me before with reporters quoting something I said, but
I didnt say it how they wrote it...

Cheers,
Jennifer

2010/10/7 Slavomír Čéplö <bulbulthegreat at gmail.com>

> Dear Jennifer,
>
> for one, the verb 'to discover' is used here in very much the same
> meaning as when it refers to the discovery of America. <sarcasm> The
> natives sure knew it was there, but who cares about them - it was a
> new thing to us in Europe and that's all that matters.</sarcasm>
> But it was a true discovery in another sense:
>
> "Indeed, the local Koro speakers themselves didn't consider theirs a
> separate language, even though it is as distinct from those spoken by
> other villagers as English is from Russian, the researchers said."
>
> Somewhat OT, I'm quite surprised that no one has yet commented on some
> strange turns of phrase used in the article:
>
> ... encoded in its mental grammar of words and sentence structure that
> helps shape thought itself
> ... where so many languages are spoken that they seem to intermingle
> effortlessly in streams of thought
>
> Yours,
>
> bulbul
>
> On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 09:46, Jennifer Teeter <teeter42 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > How it possible for these linguists to have "discovered" a language?
> > Certainly, the speakers of the language
> > have been using it and they surely know that their language exists.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> > Jennifer Teeter
> > Kyoto
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 8:34 AM, Phillip E Cash Cash
> > <cashcash at email.arizona.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> OCTOBER 6, 2010
> >>
> >> Rare Find: a New Language
> >> As Native Tongues Rapidly Become Extinct, Linguists Discover an Exotic
> >> Specimen
> >>
> >> By ROBERT LEE HOTZ
> >> USA
> >>
> >> In the foothills of the Himalayas, two field linguists have uncovered
> >> a find as rare as any endangered species—a language completely new to
> >> science.
> >>
> >> The researchers encountered it for the first time along the western
> >> ridges of Arunachal Pradesh, India's northeastern-most state, where
> >> more than 120 languages are spoken. There, isolated by craggy slopes
> >> and rushing rivers, the hunters and subsistence farmers who speak this
> >> rare tongue live in a dozen or so villages of bamboo houses built on
> >> stilts.
> >>
> >> The language—called Koro—was identified during a 2008 expedition
> >> conducted as part of National Geographic's Enduring Voices project.
> >> The researchers announced their discovery Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
> >> So many languages have vanished world-wide in recent decades that the
> >> naming of a new one commanded scientific attention.
> >>
> >> Access full article below:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703843804575534122591921594.html
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Greenheart Project
> > www.greenheartproject.org
> >
>



-- 
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