Phraselator

[Rudy Troike]

Once again the White Man is ripping off Indian tribes by flim-flamming them
with the idea that their languages can be preserved by recording the equivalent
of a phrase-book on a high-tech hand-held device. These devices are obviously
useful in situations where there is no common language for communication, and
where communication usually consists of a fairly predictable and restricted
number of expressions (customizable for, e.g., house-to-house searches for
terrorists or surgeons in a field hospital trying to save Lebanese children
brutally injured by Israeli cluster bombs). However, a good way to test the
utility of the device in a community setting would be to use one, set up with
another well-documented language such as Spanish, and have someone who knows
Spanish use it to simulate conversation with other community members in English.
My guess is that patience would quickly wear thin with the person looking up
the Spanish phrase or sentence in order to produce the appropriate English
expression. If there were Cherokee speakers who knew no English, the device
could come in handy if a doctor in an emergency room had to communicate with
them, but it is difficult to imagine English-only grandchildren having long
conversations with their Cherokee-only grandparents (if many exist). Even
granted the possible utility of the device in emergency situations, the
wide-spread adoption of it might actually hasten language death by leading
people to think that this would relieve them of the tedium and effort of
actually learning the language -- just like telling students in school that
they no longer need to learn how to add, subtract, multiply, or divide since
their calculators will do all of that drudgework for them (fine until the
batteries run out, or the wiring goes screwy and produces inaccurate results
-- as I've seen happen -- and could not be checked).

    Rudy Troike