Government language study released (fwd)

[MiaKalish@LFP]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean M. Burke" <sburke at CPAN.ORG>
To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2004 2:53 AM
Subject: Re: Government language study released (fwd)


> At 10:53 PM 2004-12-17, Rolland Nadjiwon wrote:
> >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?
>
> What do /you/ think?  I was talking about (largely uninflected) nouns and
> (highly inflected) verbs in Apachean, a distinction that I think is about
> as uncontroversial as they get -- if that bothers you, explain why.
> For chrissake, I wasn't insisting that Your Favorite Language has an
> ablative absolutive!
tske, tske, Sean. That's kind of cranky, doncha think?

In fact, that idiot Powell, the one-armed danger to Indigenous Languages,
did exactly this. He wrote a prescriptive document for language collection.
Implicit in the word list was the "invention" of forms. John Peabody
Harrington, laboring under this garish, bigoted, ignorant document wrote in
a monograph on Tewa: "There are many 'parts of speech," he says, "each of
which behaves differently, and for which we have in English no satisfactory
nomenclature. Perhaps they may all be reduced to 'nouns,' 'pronouns,'
'verbs,' and 'modifying elements'" (Harrington, 1910).

Harrington, John (1910). A Brief Description of the Tewa Language, Papers of
the School of American Archeology, 17 Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian)



>
> >Further, 'tribal politics' is not an obstacle it is a process, an
> >'obstacle' perhaps to externalized retrofitting retrofitters.
>
> Oh my yes, when the head of the culture program /still/ won't talk to the
> head of the language program because her sister Orlene asked his
> teasing-cousin Bulerd to the prom in 1952 instead of asking /him/, I'll be
> sure to bear in mind your heartfelt advice that this is all just a joyous
> process, and that to view it otherwise is to be a retrofitty retrofitso.
>
> Who needs a hug?!?

Sean needs a Hug. Here, Sean: *#*#*#*#* (  )  *#*#*#*#*#*

That's my best iconographic hug. I saw someone do a better one some time
ago, but I can't remember it now.

. . . .====> retrofitty retrofitso.   (GUFFAW, ROTFL, ROTFL, ROTFL)

made my day!



>
> --
> Sean M. Burke    http://search.cpan.org/~sburke/
>
>