What Bloomfield said.

[Rankin, Robert L.]

> Don't feel too bad about this. As Bloomfield famously said, it is almost impossible to document one language in a lifetime, and you have documented two.

Let me paraphrase what Bloomfield actually said, since I'd have to go to the library to get the exact wording:  If a linguist devotes every Summer to collecting field data and every Winter to processing those data, AND REMAINS CELIBATE, he may "turn to account three languages" in a lifetime.

Needless to say, I'm not even closing in on two.

Bob

P.S. If I recollect rightly, the original Bloomfield passage is from the introduction to his Menominee Grammar (but I could be corrected on the source.  It could be the Ojibwa grammar and the quote could be Hockett quoting Bloomfield.).
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