I think that is a great idea. Questions:
Who would make up the flyers? How
would they be distributed?
Ty
>>> T.Matthew Ciolek
<tmciolek at coombs.anu.edu.au> 05/16/96
06:09pm >>>
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BOUNCE endangered-languages-l:
Non-member submission from
[dcheezem at alaska.net (David Cheezem)]
From: dcheezem at alaska.net (David
Cheezem)
Subject: Lost Language Day?
I am not a linguist. I am a poet working
toward his Masters in Fine Arts in
Creative Writing at the University of
Alaska Anchorage. But I've been
watching the endangered language
listerve with interest and I wonder what
you think of this idea:
The annual AIDS awareness day called
"A day without art" is very effective and
powerful because of its emphasis on
what is being withheld from the world
when a human being is lost to the
disease. I think it would be just as
powerful to have an international day
mourning the loss of languages and
cultures -- another kind of withholding.
You could have flyers appear in many
major cities with an untranslated bit of a
lost language.
It could read something like this:
You will never read these
words again
The following is a statement written in
the __________ language. The last known
speaker of this langauge was
______________ who died in 19__. We are
not translating this statement because in
a small way, we want to emphasize the
loss of meaning and knowledge that
ocurrs when a language dies.
Speaking the words will not bring back
the fabric of life that accompanies a living
language, so we share them only in
mourning.
<a short untranslated text, phonetically
rendered.>
For more information about the effort to
save endngered languages and cultures,
write ______.
****
Each flyer could have text from a
different language.
Any thoughts?
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