'the linguists'

[Claire Bowern]

>     Scholars can snivel about these guys as Indiana Jones image
>     types.....well, it might be a little over dramatic,
>     but it ain't far off!

This was probably a jibe at me in part, since I was one of the main 
"snivellers" linked to from the ELAC blog. Let me explain a little why I 
have been less than enthusiastic about some aspects of "Living Tongues" 
and the media coverage that came from National Geographic. It's nothing 
to do with envy at the Indiana Jones image. If we want to play "my 
site's more dangerous than your site" or "Lara Croft: verb raider" I too 
can think of a multitude of horrible ways to die at my field site, from 
crocodiles to sarcophagic bacteria. Big deal.

My problem with Living Tongues is not about this movie, it was about the 
portrayal of Greg and David coming in, "discovering" a bunch of 
languages, "saving" them, having the story be all about them but 
pretending it was about the language groups they were "saving". They 
didn't discover anything, they didn't save anything, and it wasn't about 
the people they were working with. Apologies for complaining if 
reporting adheres only to some idealised truth rather than reporting 
facts from the world we live in. None of that applies to the movie. If 
anything, I'm happier that it's clearly about them, and isn't trying to 
be seriously reporting.

Claire