LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.05 (08) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 05.SEP.2004 (08) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Bill Wigham <redbilly2 at earthlink.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.05 (02) [E/French]

Language politics
From: Bill Wigham
Dear Friends:
        It seems a shame to think that small languages are somehow obsolete,
irrelevant or
politically impotent.  They may never muster the political muscle that the
big languages have temporarily, but they are important just as artifacts
from ancient cultures that we find in fine museums.  Modern languages will,
and must, change to meet the communication needs of each generation so
anyone who looks for a pure language must seek out some mountain valley
where no one has had a new idea since puberty.
 An example was told to me by a Polish engineer who is also the pastor of a
Slavic church in our town.  One of his parishoners came to him with a
problem.  The old Goral had come from Austrian Poland before WWI where one
might guess they could get along with about 1000 words in Polish.  In
America the old mountaineer was confronted with a lot of new ideas and so he
expressed himself in this way. "  Moja cara nie runuie dobrzie".  (My car no
run good).  (my appologies for any misspellings).

Just a thought,
Bill

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