Linguistic Matls IN the language of study

[Susan Penfield]

Mia,
Sure a searchable data base is a workable option. Guess I'm thinking in
eventual hard copy results...and a data base option that is more usable by
community members.
There is a Zuni dictionary done this way but I haven't had a chance to look
at it... (Thanks to Jane and Ken Hill for this reference!)

Bena:we Dana:we Word Categories. Developed by Wilfred Eriacho, Sr. Edited by
Wilfred Eriacho, Sr. and Rena Gonzales. Illustrated by Eldred Sanchez.
Published by Zuni Public School District No. 89 - 1998.

Nice quote from your paper!
Best,
Susan

On 2/25/06, Mia Kalish <MiaKalish at learningforpeople.us> wrote:
>
>  People are always having conferences on uses of technology for Indigenous
> languages. Most of them are too far away for me to go  . . . until I get a
> faculty position  . . .
>
>
>
> But imagine if people didn't have to choose a single sequence. Imagine if
> they could have it any way they want . . . by category, pronoun (1, 2, 3,
> 1s, 2s, 3s), -stem, keyword, source, date. This is all information that is
> usually available in English – and the Hopi – dictionary. It's not very hard
> to plop it into an Access or MS SQL data base. They both support Indigenous
> fonts of the type where the characters are in the effective sort range.
>
>
>
> Then people could search. I have a copy of the Carolinian dictionary. It
> would be cool to have this, but first, it would have to be scanned . . .
> sigh.
>
>
>
> But I agree with Sue that we need to talk about this more. Here is a
> little passage from a conference paper I did in 2001. . . Gee, I sure
> haven't changed much J
>
>
>
> When faced with a linguistic ontology quite different from that of
> European languages, John Peabody Harrington approached the issue apparently
> prosaically and without a sense of ideological misunderstandings that would
> follow from his mapping. "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). This
> normalization results in a loss of the data that would otherwise have
> defined the true nature of the Tewa language and simultaneously requires the
> "invention" of linguistic structures and rules that are not present in Tewa,
> but are essential to establishing the (supposed) integrity of the linguistic
> representation  (Kalish, 2001).
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:
> ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] *On Behalf Of *Susan Penfield
> *Sent:* Saturday, February 25, 2006 11:15 AM
> *To:* ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: [ILAT] Linguistic Matls IN the language of study
>
>
>
> All,
> I think the whole question of categories is something worth discussing.
> The Mohave and Chemehuevi communities I am working with repeatedly requests
> dictionaries organized by theme (or concept). Ideally, though much more
> difficult for languages with few remaining speakers I think, the themes
> would be determined by speakers (and not representative of English). For
> instance, what would speakers include under a category like 'living things'
> ? I'm just guessing here, but I can imagine that it might include things
> that English speakers don't consider 'living' --
>
> The importance of this is two-fold. 1) it captures traditional categories
> --hence adds to language documentation and 2) it is a more user-friendly
> presentation for community members to access.  I'm looking at a new software
> that essentially creates a Thesaurus of this type.
>
> Other thoughts?
> Susan
>
> On 2/25/06, *d_z_o* <dzo at bisharat.net> wrote:
>
> Hi Mia, Back in Futa Jalon, Guinea in the mid-80's I think I saw a
> grammar of Pular in Pular. I know I saw a monolingual dictionary in
> Pular, done by a grad student in linguistics, typed and stenciled a
> few years earlier (I regret that I couldn't get a copy and hope that
> there is at least one still extant! Unfortunately don't have the
> reference handy).
>
> There may be more of such materials in some major languages of
> Africa - there is a university in SW Nigeria for instance where one
> can write theses in Yoruba, and it wouldn't surprise me if one has
> pertained to the language itself. This should be possible to verify
> if of interest.
>
> One last point is tangential, but when studying Chinese, I got the
> impression that the grammar as presented conformed to Western
> categories, whereas in a few instances I thought the feature of
> Chinese in question was more similar to an African language I know
> (one example is "present - past" vs. "accomplished -
> nonaccomplished" in verb tenses - the latter of which helped me
> understand the use of "le" better than the attempts to explain in
> terms of present & past). This in turn made me wonder if the Chinese
> materials in Chinese use original Chinese categories or whether they
> too conform to Western categories but in translation. So that might
> be another level of analysis beneath the language of presentation
> (but certainly you've thought of that already).
>
> Don
>
>
> Quoting Mia Kalish <MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US>:
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> >
> > Does anyone know of any cases where the results of linguistic
> study of
> > Indigenous language have been codified IN the language of study?
> That would
> > be a grammar actually written in, for example, Navajo or
> Jicarilla, rather
> > than in English, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, etc?
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks for your help. I am currently writing in my dissertation
> that there
> > are no known cases. . . . I've never seen one, but maybe in Maori?
> Hawaiian?
> > Quecha?
> >
> >
> >
> > Mia
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
> --
> Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D.
>
> Department of English
> Affiliate faculty: Department of Linguistics
> and the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Program
> American Indian Language Development Institute
> Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836
>



--
Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D.

Department of English
Affiliate faculty: Department of Linguistics
and the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Program
American Indian Language Development Institute
Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836
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