LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.02.06 (05) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 06 February 2010 - Volume 05
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From: James Ward <jamesward at earthlink.net>
Subject: Language Promotion

Hi everyone!

I have been catching up with reading e-mails, and I was very interested to
follow the "Language Promotion" thread (among others, of course!).

I have been amazed, and continue to be amazed, at what a blessing the
internet is for language-learning, as I'm sure you all have been.
 Especially internet radio, but video too, now -- such a treasury of
available materials was not to be dreamed of when I was studying Russian and
German in (United States) high school and university, or Tibetan in my one
year of graduate school.  It is definitely a medium that should be used as
much as possible in the service of language promotion.

A television station would of course be highly desirable, and the goal of
establishing such an institution can be maintained while simultaneously
working with materials and media that are more immediately available or
accessible.  (And care must be taken with television.  Even if successful,
one dialect could be preferred, or given priority just because it is what
the producers are familiar with, and consequently could lead to
standardization.)

Presentation of video material on YouTube can be done with relatively little
expense.  Production can be decentralized, spread out among the different
speech areas, and the videos do not have to be of any prescribed length.  At
the same time, creators of the videos can begin to try to shape their films
into formats that are compatible with traditional television programs, and
could produce a body of work that could migrate to television if a channel
were to be allocated.

At the same time, work could be done in two related areas:  production of
videos for DVD release, without intervening television broadcasts, and
dubbing in the target language of programs that people already enjoy
watching.  For example, a few years ago I rather enjoyed watching the United
States program "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."  In the US, the DVD releases of
this program have dubbed versions in Spanish and French.  What a boon!  The
audience is already familiar with the content, and since they know the
situation, they can pay closer attention to the dubbed language.
 Permissions for dubbing and use of the material may be costly, at least for
amateurs (unpaid volunteers), so perhaps some kind of public or
state-supported television programming could more easily be used.

(Also, surely one's language clout is increased if one publishes a Tintin
(Tim, Kuifje), or better yet, more than one!)

If only these things could still be done with the English languages (or
dialects, if you prefer)!  May I just take a moment to honor Joseph Wright
again.

Think of our poets here on Lowlands-L -- make YouTube programs about them!
 So many cultural particularities are discussed here -- they are worthy
subjects for videos.  Even in our tired, jaded moments, there is still much
to interest us humans, and these things can be filmed by amateurs.  (I use
this word "amateur" in a non-derogatory sense, since I am one myself!)

In addition to the exciting subjects, there is of course also the matter of
repetition of the basics, which is so clearly important to language
acquisition and retention.  I recently found an old Modern Greek textbook in
English which I found very stimulating, because it addresses these basics in
a way that seems to be largely absent in modern language instruction.  The
book is called _Modern Greek Mastery: A Short Road to Ancient Greek_ by
Thomas Lathrop Stedman.  Some of you may be able to access it here, if you
are curious:

http://tinyurl.com/ycere7u
(This is Google Books, so unfortunately access to the full text may not be
available, depending where you are.)

The early exercises are full of sentences of the type "I raise my hand -- I
keep my hand raised -- I close my hand and thus I make a fist -- Do I raise
my hand? -- Yes, I raise my hand -- Who raises the hand? -- I raise it --
What do I raise? I raise my hand" and so on, with lots of repetition and
variation of the basic structures.  While this can bore some people to
tears, it is certainly very useful and helpful.  Materials like this can be
recorded in the various media and can be made available on DVD, on YouTube,
or as audio files, with translations as needed.

Basic living situations -- a tour of the kitchen, for example, and the
elements in it, perhaps while discussing traditional recipes -- why wouldn't
these be fine subjects for amateur productions?

But most of all, it would be very advisable to interview and record the most
competent speakers of the languages.  These can be edited into programs
later, or just made available as they are, and the more such recordings are
made, the better.  (And yes, I should be doing this with Californian Indian
languages -- there is too much to do!)

These are thoughts that came to my mind while reading this very interesting
discussion.  Thank you all very much for the stimulus!

With all the best,

James Ward
Santa Ana, California

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