Siouan tongue twisters?

Anthony Grant granta at EDGEHILL.AC.UK
Tue May 14 11:04:19 UTC 2013


Hi Wally:  They're in the California Language Archive.  I came across
them one day simply by putting 'Sadie Bedoka Weller' into Google.  I
don't know who put them there but there are almost 4.5 hours there in 30
files, including some stuff that didn't appear in DaCruz's paper, such
as a short prayer.  Eva Guy Luther, whom I've never heard of, is listed
as another consultant.

Best

Anthony

>>> Wallace Chafe <chafe at LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU> 13/05/2013 23:44 >>>
Hi Anthony,

Da Cruz gave me his tapes in the 60's before he left for Beirut. I
don't
know what happened to him after that. They were digitized a long time
ago. A few years ago I had a couple students make a separate sound
file
of each word, thinking I might plug those recordings into dictionary
entries. I don't see his recordings on the web, which came as a
surprise. Do you know where they are and who put them there? I also
have
useful cassettes of Caddo language classes made by Phil Newkumet. And
of
course I still have my own recordings which haven't been fully
exploited
yet. I've heard that there might be one or two speakers still alive,
but
I've been too occupied with other things to make the necessary trips
to
Oklahoma. Hence the guilt.

Wally

On 5/13/2013 2:52 PM, Anthony Grant wrote:
> Wally, there's still lots of Caddo data out there waiting to be
> appreciated, from Gallatin, Haldeman and Gatschet  onwards (and even
> some before).  The recordings Daniel Da Cruz made with the last
really
> good speaker are out there on the Web.  Are there any speakers left
with
> whom people could rehear older records of Caddo and get them down in
> better versions (recognising glottalisation, for instance)?  I agree,
it
> is a beautiful language.
>
> Anthony
>
>>>> Wallace Chafe <chafe at LINGUISTICS.UCSB.EDU> 05/13/13 1:27 AM >>>
> I'm sort of a lurker on this list, because I don't have new things
to
> say about Caddo. However, I'd like to second enthusiastically two of
> Bob's points. I've also decided that trying to serve two very
different
> audiences doesn't work out very well, and that it's better to serve
them
> separately. Also, and here I feel enormously guilty, everyone should
be
> advised to do as much in the way of documentation as they can while
they
> can. I'm trying in my spare time (!) to prepare a Caddo dictionary
and
> texts, but I wish I'd devoted much more time to that many years ago.
The
> very best speaker died in 1970 (!) and it was impossible to find
anyone
> nearly as good after that. However, I probably could have tried
harder
> and I was always distracted by the more rewarding situation among
the
> Senecas. The beautiful Caddo language deserves better treatment than
> I've given it.
>
> Wally
>
> On 5/12/2013 1:59 PM, Rankin, Robert L. wrote:
>>> kóge glelábliⁿ gléblaⁿ húyaⁿ glelábliⁿnaⁿ gléblaⁿ glelábliⁿ aglíⁿ
>> glelábliⁿ."
>>
>> Dick Carter used to have a couple of Lakota personal names in which
a
>> string of gl- and bl- sequences served as a humorous device.  Wish
I
>> could remember them: maybe someone else can. One involved the word
for
>> 'whirlwind'.
>>
>> Let me second Jimm's plea to all of you with untranscribed and/or
>> unanalyzed linguistic data, especially from Siouan languages than
are
>> now extinct.  Just in my professional lifetime Quapaw, Osage, Kaw,
>> Tutelo, Ioway, and Otoe have gone.  Mandan is very close, and
Hochank
>> is not too far behind with Ponca and Omaha in line behind those.
This
>> is not something I expected to see 40 years ago, but it is now all
too
>> painfully obvious.
>>
>> And while I am reiterating Jimm's message, permit me to express a
>> prejudice that I have come to believe in very strongly.  For those
of
>> you working on dictionaries and/or grammars, please do not fall
into
>> the trap of trying to write a treatment that "will be useful to
>> students and linguists alike."  Such attempts, in my opinion and
>> experience, */always/* fall between two stools, and neither
audience
>> is served thereby.  Just go ahead and write two books, one for
Native
>> people who wish to learn the language, and another for linguists
who
>> deserve a properly unintelligible technical treatment. Nowadays it
is
>> not difficult to produce two parallel treatments with a word
processor
>> using "find and replace" along with "cut and paste". The extra work
>> will be well worth the effort.  This is what LInda and I are trying
to
>> do with Kaw.
>>
>> When I begain field work with Quapaw in 1972, I discovered I was
>> already a couple of years too late.  When I shifted my attention to
>> Kawin '73, I promised to complete a dictionary and grammar in a few
>> years. I finished the dictionary database in 1985, but it has now
been
>> 40 years since I began, and a dictionary for teaching purposes has
>> only just appeared.  The text collection appeared only a couple of
>> years ago with the absolutely indispensable help of Justin and
Linda.
>> I am now retired and 74 yrs. old.  I'll be lucky to finish the
grammar
>> project, so please do */not/* follow in my footsteps and postpone
the
>> writing until it's too late for the language and maybe too late for
> /you/.
>> Bob
>
> Edge Hill University
> Times Higher University of the Year - shortlisted 2007, 2010, 2011
> www.edgehill.ac.uk
>
>
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Edge Hill University
Times Higher University of the Year - shortlisted 2007, 2010, 2011
www.edgehill.ac.uk


This message is private and confidential. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender and remove it from your
system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or associated
companies.  Edge Hill University may monitor email traffic data and also
the content of email for the purposes of security and business
communications during staff absence.



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