Separate list? Other questions also.

[Jeffrey Kopp]

On Fri, 27 Aug 1999 20:44:52 -0700, you wrote:

>LaXayEm,
>
>Interesting and unexpected developments have come up on this list, haven't
>they?  I'm pleased.
>
>First, anyone who speaks abusively will be removed by me directly from the
>group.  It's the easiest way to do things, you cultus bastards.

Hi, Dave.  I think it's worth mentioning that the recent
unpleasantness was probably largely the result of a more or less
inadvertent technical glitch.  I think someone subscribed from his
place of employment, and when he moved on and his account was
deleted, his messages went to the general mailbox associated with
that domain name.   Whoever subsequently received our messages didn't
know what they were or who we were (though he certainly didn't have
to be rude about it).  It probably does look like gibberish to the
uninitiated.

If anyone gets any weird stuff apparently associated with the list,
I'd suggest just letting Dave know privately.  If necessary, I can
help him figure out where it's coming from so we can deal with it in
the kitchen, so to speak.  There's no need to echo it to the list.
This isn't an unmoderated usenet group.

(Dave:  Can the list server stick a tagline on outgoing messages
explaining where they are coming from, with an address for service,
or something?)

>Humor!  --As Emmett has noticed, it's very welcome when you're trying to
>learn...
>
>Next:  Do we need a separate list for the purpose of discussion in ChInUk
>Wawa?  I'm able and willing to launch and moderate such a group.  Another
>way to do it is to have "topics" specified in the LISTSERV programming,
>such that each posting is labeled according to its general subject matter
>-- Each subscriber would specify to the computer *which* topics she or he
>wants to receive.
>
>*However*, I'd be sad to see this happen.  It's very
>important to have a community of people concerned with the language, and
>that includes both speakers and researchers (among others).  Your efforts
>are a welcome sign that the language is revitalizing.  I can't speak for
>Tony and the Grand Ronde program, but I know that I get many ideas for the
>teaching and analysis of ChInUk by reading what you folks write, and by
>writing in the language myself.

I wondered about that but it might be unnecessarily complicated for
our little (so far) group.  I think it would be sufficient to preface
the subject lines of practice text with some keyword like
"practice:"; this way everyone would have an opportunity to see them,
but it would be easier to leave them aside for when the reader has
time to study such a message.

I often skip over messages (like wawa practice) which need a while to
digest, but then I tend to forget about them.  (I tried making a
folder called "pending reply" to stick these into, but I kept
forgetting that, too.)  I then discovered I can simply mark a message
I've looked at as "unread," so the next time I go into my mail it
will still attract my attention.  I even made a button for it so I
now have it handy in my trusty mail reader (Agent).

I may not reply to the wawa messages but when I have time I do puzzle
over them, and it helps me.  I looked over some stuff today that I
did a year and a half ago (the Moola John stories) and found my
comprehension of Wawa is certainly better now than it was then,
though I am still kind of shy about composing wawa prose.

>Lastly, in regard to your wanting to know more about the technical side of
>this list, and wanting feedback on what is "Lush ChInUk" and what's
>"mEsachi ChInUk"...I'm quite willing and able to provide some information.
>Tony, as you all know, is very very busy with the language program in his
>community, but perhaps between him, me, Henry, Zvjezdana, and other
>unwitting "volunteers", some fairly frequent pointers can be offered.
>This would be really nice to see.

Well, I think that being a pidgin, the main standard today is
probably the same as it was on the frontier, that is, simply whether
it's intelligible and unambiguous.  We can get fancy and fussy after
we're all communicating in wawa.  It's certainly good to want to be
correct, but too much anxiety about correctness will inhibit attempts
to communicate, and the adventure of learning.

>At the Lu7lu, Jeff asked me to recommend a good introductory linguistics
>textbook, and now Nadja is inquiring along the same track.  Frankly, I've
>been out of those sorts of classes for years, and I only recall the text
>by Akmajian, Demers and Harnish that we used at Columbia.  My feeling is
>that *every* general ling. text I've looked at would be of use to a
>beginner, as there's a pretty standard range of stuff that they'll all
>cover.  Any particular questions you have?--I'm eager to answer them
>personally.

I suppose I could cruise the bookstore the next time I am at the
college and see what sort of stuff they have set out for "Ling 101."
I need to brush up on my basic English as well; I confused a
participle with a preposition in my last blast to the list.

>Thanks for letting me go on so!

Sure, and me too.

>Hayash mehrsi,
>Dave
>