[langmaker2] Dead?

[Mike Cleven]

At 08:04 AM 9/17/99 -0700, John Schilke wrote:
>Not to seem contrary, but I'd like to point out that there are now child
>speakers of Manx, being taught the language in school, and that not a few
>adults have it, too.  Does one then say that it is being resurrected?

When is a language not a language?  Modern Hebrew didn't exist a hundred
years ago either, nor Finnish nor modern Turkish or either standard form of
Norwegian - there is actually a fair number of "constructed" languages that
have done quite well for themselves.  Even the official Mandarin of the
People's Republic is "invented", contrasting sharply with Mandarin as
spoken in Taiwan or other offshore Chinese communities.

Manx is a good example of a "reconstructed" language being reabsorbed by
youth, and supposedly Erse (Irish) is as well, although its survival as a
language of youth in the next decades is said to be not likely; it remains
a vibrant cultural language, nonetheless.  Both Manx and Irish, however, I
believe fall in the category of "survivor" languages, with there always
having been surviving speakers to have helped the rebirth along.  Cornish,
also, is a deliberate modern invention, based on Breizh (Breton) and a bit
of Welsh; it's supposed to resemble the ancient tongue that was spoken in
much of England before the coming of the Angles and Saxons in the mid-1st
millenium.

It surprised me during my travels in the UK years ago when I wandered into
Llanberis in northern Wales.  I'd already encountered Welsh "on the street"
and on road signs, etc. upon entering Wales at Llangollen (on the A-5 west
of Chester) - but it took me completely by surprise to experience Welsh as
a daily social and commercial language in Llanberis, with no small
resentment of even my foreigner's English evident in the butcher or at the
library!  I don't think Welsh has much chance in South Wales, but it was
clear that the locals of northwestern Wales has no intention of ever
speaking anything else!  Whether they can withstand the English cottager
invasion is maybe another matter.....the double "ll" in those names, by the
way, is pretty close to the Chinuk "tl/kl" ("L" in the listerve ASCII
version) though I think it's a little less plosive and quite a bit softer.

Manx has its allure, though.  Tradition says that Man was the isle where
Merlin chose to be entombed in an age had once been ruled by elves, elves
who had conquered an ancient land of giants, giants who still sleep, bound,
beneath Rushen Castle in the darkness of catacombs of unknown depth and
complexity.  The elves' magic fires were said to weave a spell of
invisibility around the Isle (dense fog) that was only pierced at the time
of the wars between the gods and men (the tales of the Mabinogion); one of
the Irish divinities harnessed a wind to blow its fleet to invade Britain,
the wind revealing the Isle's existence and leading to its conquest by the
gods and subsequent invasion by humanity.  The spell of sleep laid on the
giants and on Merlin is still said to affect those who stray too deep into
Rushen Castle's depths, some even in our age said to have entered and never
returned; tales of the powers of the remaining elves are still common
across the Manx countryside, even as they are throughout all the Isles.
Let it be that these tales might be told in Manx again one day....

Perhaps re-born Manx does not resemble the ancient dialects spoken on the
Island, but is it not happy that the tongue of elves and wizards still lives?

 such as the Chinook
>Jargon of Pacific Northwest, which is being used increasingly by both
>adults and children in Oregon because of efforts of revivification?

Although I knew in my heart that the Jargon never was completely dead (as
borne out by the surprise contacts from around BC and the Northwest that
have typified this list over its existence), it's good to know that it
remained a community language binding together people of different "ethnic"
backgrounds in a specific set of communities.  This sets a positive example
for some of the embattled languages in BC, and it may be that the success
of the Jargon as an "intertribal" language in Grande Ronde (where elsewhere
in Oregon, if?) will encourage a rejuvenation of interest in the use of the
Jargon as a lingua franca among BC First Nations, even as it still was when
the interest in language rejuvenation took hold in the '60s and '70s and
was affirmed by comments by participants at last year's workshop from the
Sto:lo (were you guys at this year's in Grande Ronde?).

Does anyone around here know any of the techniques used to "reinvent"
languages?  Like Manx - from traces of a half-dead tongue - to Finnish -
blended from several tribal dialects (Finland's dominant language for
hundreds of years was Swedish), or Hebrew, distilled from one of the more
august liturgical languages in history.  How new terms were coined, how
they got people to use the new language (esp. Finnish and Hebrew), how a
'literature' was created, how it became popular and 'cool' among the young.
 No doubt the linguistic experiences of Finns and Israelis might already
resemble some of what is going on in Oregon.  Hyas kloshe.

Sorry I've rambled....naika cultus klatawa kopa tumtum.....

Mike