Leaving aside the question of whether it is the responsibility of publishers like Mouton to provide the materials gratis, it is a good thing to make them available where possible to everyone in the community. When only a few people or an institution such as the community's government or school get copies, all too often few people even know about them and in some cases I've seen them disappear, so that ten or fifteen years later, nobody is aware of them. <br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 1:49 PM, Xavier Barker <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:meibitobure.gaunibwe@gmail.com">meibitobure.gaunibwe@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div>Why offer it at a 'reduced' price rather than no price at all? I can't imagine much of a book being put together without the members of the community's involvement. Surely all the contributors are entitled to a copy gratis, not just the ones sticking their names on the cover. </div>
<div><div class="h5"><div><br></div><br><div><div>On 23/12/2011, at 7:57 AM, Matthew Dryer wrote:</div><br><blockquote type="cite">
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A number of years ago, when Richard Rhodes published his dictionary
of Eastern Ojibwa with Mouton de Gruyter, he made an arrangement, as
I understand it, with Mouton to make copies available to members of
the community at a much reduced price. Perhaps this is something
that should be done more regularly.<br>
<br>
Matthew Dryer<br>
<br>
On 12/18/11 10:36 PM, Greg Dickson wrote:
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<div style="font-family:arial;font-size:12px">A good point
to raise Peter.<br>
<br>
In my experience of working in Northern Australia with
Aboriginal languages and language workers, grammars are
generally pretty indecipherable anyway, without a decent
amount of training and support to help language workers unpack
what's in them.<br>
<br>
As for dictionaries, the one that I thought community language
workers responded best to was the Rembarrnga Dictionary
compiled by Adam Saulwick. It has illustrations and a nice
layout and with minimal morpho-phonemic processes, the
Rembarrnga language suits the dictionary format better than
some other languages I've worked with. It was $50 a pop so not
crazy-expensive, but still - most Rembarrnga speakers wouldn't
have known about where/how to get a copy, let alone be able to
afford one and what's worse is that the Art Centre that
produced has sold them all and doesn't seem interested in
printing any more! So while this was a resource community
members found useful, accessibility was still a problem.<br>
<br>
The issue remains a difficult one... I feel that if you have a
few people working on the ground in language communities who
can share the information that is contained in grammars and
dictionaries in a meaningful way, then you're doing more than
a book on a shelf can do. Furthermore, if producers of such
materials have involved community members in their production,
then you've already make good headway even before publication.
A good training program, support for community language work
and/or involvement in resource production will counter the
expense or inaccessibility of published resources, in my
opinion.<br>
<br>
You can't really tell from the outside anyway - some linguists
may have an expensive publication but disseminate dozens of
PDFs or printouts to community for free. Others may have a
great publication but move on to another language or job and
become inaccessible to community members.<br>
<br>
My two cents on an important issue...<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Greg.<br><p> <br>
</p>
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<div style="border-left:1px dashed blue;padding-left:15px;padding-top:5px;margin-left:15px">On 19/12/2011 9:41 AM
Peter Keegan wrote:<br>
<br>
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<div>From RNLD Twitter<br>
<br>
>A new grammar and lexicon of <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23Siraya" title="#Siraya" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><s>#</s><b>Siraya</b></a>
language of Taiwan has been published. Great news for
those revitalising <br>
>Siraya <a href="http://t.co/f7SzxO8i" title="http://www.degruyter.de/cont/imp/mouton/detailEn.cfm?id=IS-9783110252958-1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.degruyter.de/cont/imp/mouton/detailEn.cfm?id=IS-9783110252958-1</a><br>
<br>
This is excellent news for those of us that are
Austronesians and/or Austronesianists.<br>
<br>
But I can't help but wondering that, at USD $195 (eBook
same price) and written in English, whether or not<br>
that this is really going to be of much use to Siraya
speakers and those interesting in revitalizing Siraya.<br>
<br>
Can anyone provide me with an example of a recent
grammar/lexicon produced by a Linguist <br>
that is accessible and that indigenous people actually
find useful ?<br>
<br>
regards,<br>
<br>
Peter J Keegan (Auckland, New Zealand)<br>
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