Antony Green: Language Usage on Celtling (was Ivernian)

[Elizabeth J. Pyatt]

From: Antony Green <green at ling.uni-potsdam.de>
X-Accept-Language: ga,de,en
To: The Celtic Linguistics List <CELTLING at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Subject: Re: Marion Gunn: Ivernian

Marion Gunn wrote:

>>  so my point still stands: if such as on this list lay claim to knowing
>>  enough of a Celtic language to expound at length on its features, how come
>>  a reluctance to do what one might call the 'politically correct' or
>>  'decent' thing in 2002, viz., to provide a brief summary of their own
>>  thoughts in their target language, for the express benefit of its surviving
>>  speakers (instead of laying that as an  additional burden on any native
>>  translators)?
>
Well, because it just isn't the case that knowledge of the linguistic
facts of a language entails the ability to communicate in that language.
I can, and do, expound at length on the phonology of Irish, but writing
anything more than the most rudimentary Irish that sounds like it comes
out of the first few chapters of "Progress in Irish" requires me to
spend
at least an hour with a dictionary.  Is that politically incorrect of
me?  Is it unfair to any native translators to lay the burden of
translation on them?  Perhaps, but on the other hand, if I were going
to try to summarize my thoughts in Irish, any native speaker would
probably wind up having to read my English anyway, just to figure out
what on earth I was attempting to say.

And my Welsh is even worse -- I once did write in Welsh to WELSH-L with
a question about the subject of a sentence, only to get a response
tactfully telling me that the word for "subject" I had used referred
only to the citizen of a monarchy, i.e. a king's or queen's subject.

I'm certain any native speaker would rather read my Béarla cliste than
my Gaeilge bhriste any day!

--
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that
English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore.  We don't just borrow
words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways
to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
                                                          James D. Nicoll
========================================================================
Antony Dubach Green                            green at ling.uni-potsdam.de
Universität Potsdam
Institut für Linguistik                        Tel. +49 331 9772936
Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, Haus 35
14476 Golm                                     Fax  +49 331 9772087
Germany

                  http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~green/

--
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