Government language study released (fwd)

[Rolland Nadjiwon]

What if you are working with a language that has no(your last paragraph)
pronouns, genderization, binarism or linearity(time/history)...do you invent
them?

If the language, or anything of the 'other' for that matter, is reinvented
to fit the structure is this not somewhat of a 'Cinderella Syndrome' -- the
stepsisters distorted contortions to fit their gross feet into the glass
slipper.

Further, 'tribal politics' is not an obstacle it is a process, an 'obstacle'
perhaps to externalized retrofitting retrofitters.

Obviously, there is so much more to this.

-------
wahjeh
rolland nadjiwon


----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean M. Burke" <sburke at CPAN.ORG>
To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, December 17, 2004 8:10 PM
Subject: Re: Government language study released (fwd)


> At 06:46 PM 2004-12-15, MiaKalish at LFP wrote:
>> > How well did they test on learning grammatical formations, and other
>> > non-lexical things?
>>We didn't get that far. This was for basic lexical acquisition, without
>>using Any English.  We thought the success of our first project would
>>excite others, and we would have the chance to develop the Flash movies
>>for teaching grammar dynamically[...]
>
> Yes, the problem of tribal politics is always a massive obstacle in any
> language revitalization program.  I think the best solution is to have on
> your side not just your ample enthusiasm for technologies that you feel
> can
> be promising, but also clear documentation of past experiments showing the
> technologies to be brilliantly useful for the task you're proposing --
> demonstrating this with an experimental group and a control group, and
> going past just lexical retention.  Having experimental results in hand is
> what can put you head and shoulders over the other dog-and-pony shows
> that're out there in the realm of language technology.
>
> I mean, anybody can learn a few dozen nouns in an Apachean language -- but
> it's trying to go from "he runs" to "I ran" or "he ran around" that trips
> up all the learners.  Find a technology that helps with that more than
> /just/ chalk-and-talk does, and show proof of how and when your new tech
> is
> effective, and you'll be practically immune to the hassles of tribal
> politics.
>
> --
> Sean M. Burke    http://search.cpan.org/~sburke/
>