[Lexicog] endangered entries for endangered languages

[Mark J Awakuni-Swetland]

Wayne,

I am all for including a word or phrase that is no longer used, 
recognized, or translatable. In Fletcher and La Flesche's "The Omaha 
Tribe" lists of personal clan names, many are glossed as "meaning 
uncertain" or similarly. 
And yet today there are community members carrying those names although 
they cannot offer an English gloss or Native language interpretation.

TOOLBOX has numerous fields. Perhaps designate one for just such terms. Or 
make comments about where the term was encountered, when, and in what 
context in a NOTES field.

Better to err on the side of conserving all words than to select out the 
"unknowns" from the resources of future students of the language, enit?
Mark

Mark Awakuni-Swetland, Ph.D.
http://omahalanguage.unl.edu

oNska abthiN!




"Wayne Leman" <wayne_leman at sil.org> 
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06/04/2007 06:29 PM
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Subject
[Lexicog]  endangered entries for endangered languages






I assume that a number of us subscribed to this list study endangered 
languages. I do. I'm continuing work with Cheyenne speakers to bring 
greater 
accuracy to our dictionary entries. Occasionally we encounter a form which 

was used sometime in the past but no longer is. Sometimes it is no longer 
even recognized by any current speakers. Sometimes speakers can pronounce 
a 
word but no longer know what it means. This is especially true of some 
proper names. Sometimes we don't know for sure exactly how to spell parts 
of 
a word. It may have been recorded in an informal way by a soldier or a 
frontiersman.

Unless significant social changes occur, Cheyenne will no longer be a 
viable 
language 30 or so years from now. But Cheyennes value having had their 
language recorded and likely will value it in the future, just as members 
of 
tribes in California value having had some of their, now extinct, language 

recorded in the past.

Might any of you have recommendations for entering lexical forms for which 

we have little certainty today since they are no longer recognized by any 
speakers. We could simply create dictionaries of extant forms. We could do 

that for English, but we would be missing a wealth of archaic forms which 
were used at one time in English. It seems to me that when we have some 
kind 
of records, however inadequate, that some forms were extant at one time, 
but 
no longer are, that there is value in including them in a dictionary.

What do you all think?

Wayne
-----
Wayne Leman
Cheyenne dictionary online:
http://www11.asphost4free.com/cheyennedictionary/default.htm 

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