[Ads-l] Lakota elders helped a white man preserve their language. Then he tried to sell it back to them.

[Tom Zurinskas]

Writing a language is not hard to do phonetically.  Once the set of phonemes and inflections of a language (the phonabet) are identified it's easy to do the rest in terms of spelling words phonetically, just a big job typing up thousands of words according to their sounds.  The tribe can do it themselves.  I examine the sounds of the Navajo language here http://bit.ly/2rmKcLx<https://justpaste.it/redirect/totaltruespel/http://bit.ly/2rmKcLx>    All native Averican languages should be spelled in one phonetic system.

The alphabetic principle is that letters stand for sounds.  If Lakota is spelled in truespel phonetics it would be done in letters of the alphabet, no special symbols, and English friendly.  It would be compatible to US English which is spelled in truespel as well.  See the free converter and tutorials at http://truespel.com .
[https://i0.wp.com/www.truespel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/icon.png?fit=340%2C340&ssl=1]<http://truespel.com/>
Truespel Phonetics – Learn English<http://truespel.com/>
Truespel Phonetics is the World’s first “pronunciation guide spelling system” based on U.S. English, the world’s most important language.
truespel.com



Tom Zurinskas,  Originally from SW Conn 20 yrs,  college NE Tenn 3,  work SE NJ  33,  resides SE Florida 18...  truespel.com






________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2022 9:42 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Lakota elders helped a white man preserve their language. Then he tried to sell it back to them.

Surely the Consortium can donate as many copies as the Lakota schools need?

And give the tribe a cut of the profits (if any).

You can't preserve a language through books, if people can't afford
access to them.

JL

JL

On Fri, Jun 10, 2022 at 3:01 PM Mark Mandel <markamandel at gmail.com> wrote:

> *Lakota elders helped a white man preserve their language.
> <
> https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/native-american-language-preservation-rcna31396
> >*
> *Then he tried to sell it back to them.
> <
> https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/native-american-language-preservation-rcna31396
> >*
> NBC News
> *June 3, 2022, 7:00 AM EDT / Updated June 3, 2022, 4:08 PM EDT*
> By Graham Lee Brewer
> STANDING ROCK INDIAN RESERVATION, S.D. — Ray Taken Alive had been fighting
> for this moment for two years: At his urging, the Standing Rock Sioux
> Tribal Council was about to take the rare and severe step of banishing a
> nonprofit organization from the tribe’s land.
>
> The Lakota Language Consortium had promised to preserve the tribe’s native
> language and had spent years gathering recordings of elders, including
> Taken Alive’s grandmother, to create a new, standardized Lakota dictionary
> and textbooks.
>
> But when Taken Alive, 35, asked for copies, he was shocked to learn that
> the consortium, run by a white man, had copyrighted the language materials,
> which were based on generations of Lakota tradition. The traditional
> knowledge gathered from the tribe was now being sold back to it in the form
> of textbooks.
>
> “No matter how it was collected, where it was collected, when it was
> collected, our language belongs to us. Our stories belong to us. Our songs
> belong to us,” Taken Alive, who teaches Lakota to elementary school
> students, told the tribal council in April.
>
> *click headline for story*
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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