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

[Joyce McDonough]

In a recent conference on Minority Languages and Revitalization in  
Tibet at the Trace Institute in NYC,  Joshua Fishman makes a good  
point  that looks something like this:  Languages change constantly  
and endangered languages are under even more change. The essential  
thing is to preserve / build/ support a speech community, a place  
where the language is spoken. Yiddish, he said, has not been saved by  
the literary people, those who write in it or about it, but in the  
kitchen.

One thing we language activists, if that's what we are, haven't dealt  
with well is how these languages under contact are actually changing  
and developing during this process.


Joyce



On Dec 17, 2009, at 12:49 PM, Gary Holton wrote:

> 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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>
>