LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.13 (06) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

===========================================
L O W L A N D S - L - 13 January 2009 - Volume 06
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).
If viewing this in a web browser, please click on
the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page
and switch your browser's character encoding to Unicode.
===========================================


From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.13 (04) [E]

Dumela!



i had a bit of a hard time (it iS 2:30 AM here) following "he said"/  "I
said" in Mark's last LONG posting, but i THINK Mark said:

The Great Missionary Moffat who translated the Bible into Setswana reported
he was repeatedly set back by conceptual lacunae such as this. ...  So you
invent a word: Meaningless,

Yes, indeed, meaningless. MY experience -- not with Setswana, cause I have
none (except a few qwords exchanged with a friendly taxi driver in Pretoria
who shared a taste in South African Jazz!), nor even Sepedi, where I do, but
with SIGN LANGUAGE Interpreters (in Japan anyway), and the whole group of
people who sit in commitee (also in japan) and decide how a word SHOULD be
signed by interpeters -- is that once the word is decided upon, independent
of the community of users (and often contrary to the way they already in
fact DO sign it!), and the Interpreters get "taught" (and what is a pastor
but an interpreter of the word?) and gets up on stage and goes to use it,
the Deaf audience sits there and nods their heads and smiles ... and leaves
the lecture with not an iota of an idea what the H*** that woman (in japan
it was mostly, but not invariably, a woman) was trying to say. USUALLY they
come up (collectively) with some "interpretation" ... just as usually
fallign far short of what they SHOULD have been let to understand. (We DO
PAY these people, intrpreters, after all ... or maybe not!)



... I suppose though, after all these years the Setswana finally
have figured out what the fella was yappin about ... Oh yeah, that thingy
that goes round and round .... and keeps gettin busted by the D*** potholes
in the dirt tracks out here!


And I suppose once Moffat (PBUH) gave them the word for it, they just HAD to
go invent the wheel ... again!

without diligently teaching & demonstrating to enough teachers to carry the
concept accurately across to the rest. To this day a pastor in Setswana is
'Morutisi' - (teacher).

 and "translator" is, in the Italian pun anyway, a "traitor"!

A man who cannot communicate a need in his native language is seriously
obstructed in any effort to broadcast a solution. Cultural diffusion doesn't
happen rapidly or smoothly, if it happens at all.

Yes, having been away from my native land for all these decades of years,
and surrounded by barbarians (bar-bar-bar-bar), I OFTEN find myself at a
LOSS for what we call this or that thing ... in English. Really only gets in
the way though when someone ASKS me (as Herr Professor, linguist) and I
can't for the life of me remember. Embarrassment, yes. Problems, nope. In
fact, there are many a thing i never even knew the name for way back when
... Yet, somehow i have managed. I can still tell my wife (typing over
google talk) how to get the VCR to record from her camcorder, even if I
haven't got a name for it. AND even if I DID have a name for it, wouldn't
help her any! ...



How much cultural diffusion there is though, i can't say. Cause in two
months I KNOW she will ask me how to do it again ;-) STILL won't have name
for it, but somehow I'll manage.



(Sorry, i am DEFINITELY NOT a believer in nominalism! THINGs continue to
exist, regardless of what we call them, and if we call them something else,
they are unphased by it all. Language MAY help us transmit to OTHERS our
concepts of how the universe works, and organize it when it gets long and
complicated even, but I wonder how much it helps US ? At a basic level,
anyway, explanations shorter than your everage VCR manual ... or astronomy
textbook.)



sorry, mid-night rambling ...



hlobaela Bombaeng,


Mike || マイク || माईक || Мика || માઈક || მაიქ || ਮਾਈਕ
מייק || மாஇக் || Miqueu || U C > || ما یک || Mihangel
================
Dr Michael W Morgan
Ishara Foundation || ईशारा फॉउंडेशन  || イシャラ基金
Mumbai/Bombay *|* मुंबई *|* ムンバイ/ボンベイ (インド)
www.ishara.org
+++++++++++++++
Одной рукой не поднять двух арбузов
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20090113/5af0b0be/attachment.htm>