Dena'ina (and Tlingit, sorta) in the news

[Gary Holton]

Nothing intrinsically wrong with purism -- unless it become a barrier
to revitalization. Coining new words is great, when possible, but
borrowing is often much easier and greatly facilitates expansion into
new lexical domains. Note that two centuries ago, when the Dena'ina
language situation was much more vibrant, it borrowed more than 400
items from Russian. Borrowing can be a very powerful force in language
maintenance.

Gary




On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 8:39 AM, Ryan Denzer-King
<johndillinger43 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> However, it's not necessary to borrow a word from English to name a new
> concept.  Those that want to keep the purity of their language (which I
> don't think is without warrant) can use language-internal lexemes, e.g., the
> Blackfoot word for 'car' is a compound meaning "it begins to run without
> apparent cause".
>
> Ryan Denzer-King
>
>> Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 07:02:11 -0900
>> From: gmholton at ALASKA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: Dena'ina (and Tlingit, sorta) in the news
>> To: ATHAPBASCKAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>>
>> And there is also the well-worn comment about the lack of a word for
>> 'computer'. How many languages must fade due in part to a puristic
>> aversion to borrowing?
>>
>> Gary
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Andrea L. Berez <andrea.berez at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > And there's also a nice link in the first paragraph to the qenaga.org
>> > website :-)
>> > -----------------------------
>> > Andrea L. Berez
>> > PhD candidate, Dept. of Linguistics
>> > University of California, Santa Barbara
>> > http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~aberez/
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 10:42 AM, James Crippen <jcrippen at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> The article doesn't have much content, but there's a great photo of
>> >> Roy Iutzi-Mitchell looking angry about Dena'ina disappearing. Roy has
>> >> been working with Dena'ina people for the last year or so, helping
>> >> plan and develop their revitalization programs. Dena'ina is getting
>> >> more and more press lately as Anchorage residents become aware that
>> >> the land they live on is traditional Dena'ina territory.
>> >>
>> >> http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=11625659
>> >>
>> >> Just underneath that article is one about the "Proud Raven" totem
>> >> pole, a Tlingit pole featuring a likeness of Abraham Lincoln. This
>> >> article doesn't mention the third tradition for the pole's carving,
>> >> the one I heard as a kid, which is that it represents the unpaid debt
>> >> for slaves which were freed by the Americans. Not very romantic, so
>> >> it's not very popular. I can't interpret the names because they're too
>> >> Anglicized but "Yalgeewee" probably has the Tlingit yéil /jéːɬ/
>> >> "raven" in it.
>> >>
>> >> http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=11583507
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >> James
>> >
>> >
>
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