re SIL

Tue May 6 14:20:09 UTC 2008

Dear Jan Tucker and others,

I am reminded of Momaday's House Made of Dawn, "In beginning 
was the word" is a wonderful idea, Momaday tells us, but 
then "White people" had to go adding something, they could not 
leave it alone, and so they added, "and the word was God."

Some Christian denominations are into translation by degrees, 
and some are not. The Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, attempt 
to replicate Jehovah as a Navajo word: Jiihovah. But this seems 
naive linguistics. One, it should probably be Jiihobah, and 
two, I doubt very much that they mean to suggest that /h/ is 
actually pronounced word final in Jiihovah (it certainly is not 
in English). But in Navajo, word final /h/ is pronounced (i.e., 
gah 'rabbit'). Other denominations make decisions on whether or 
not to translate Jesus into Navajo or leave it has Jesus. 
Understanding ideologically what can and cannot be translated 
across languages becomes an interesting approach to "the word".

Best, akw

---------Included Message----------
>Date: 5-may-2008 20:45:41 -0500
>From: "Jan Tucker" <jtucker at starband.net>
>To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
>Subject: Re: [ILAT] re SIL
>
>Richard,
>    I was at a "primitive skills" event last weekend. I was 
listening to 
>what I thought was a group of men who were "End Timers". They 
were fired up 
>with the "word" in their flint knapping circle. I was sitting 
quietly sewing 
>a deer hide to smoke in a demonstration. Anyway, I let it out 
I was an 
>anthropologist and spent the rest of the weekend being 
interrogated about my 
>beliefs. It was tough, my point though is that I hadn't 
realized how 
>important the phrase "In the beginning was the Word" to these 
Southern 
>Christians until this weekend.  It made me realize why the 
Bible is so 
>important to this group, and realize why the missionaries have 
become 
>linguists, and translated the bible into so many different 
languages. Maybe 
>they are becoming like their God, being the first to share 
the "Word". Their 
>zealot like enthusiasm seems to suggest this to me. I agree 
after talking to 
>these people with what you said here
>
>>From his paradigm window, these natives are children of "the 
fall" of
>> a literal Adam and Eve, and they need to be rescued at any 
cost.
>> I think Its important for us to understand what compels 
missionary work,
>> even if their view of reality is MAJOR different than our 
own.
>
>I heard this same kind of thinking about the unsaved, and a 
story about 
>someone (Adam or Adam's brother???) taking a wife from the 
land of Nod or 
>something. Wish I'd played closer attention now. The person 
was suggesting 
>the land of Nod was populated by other people or maybe the  
unsaved people. 
>All this was suggested with questions and seemingly open for 
interpretation.
>
>Understanding the perspective of the Christian 
missionaries "paradigm 
>window" is useful to defend against the assimilations 
pressures that often 
>begun with adopting their religion.
>
>Jan Tucker
>Applied Cultural Anthropologist
>Liberal Arts Department
>Lake City Community College
>Lake City, FL
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Richard Smith" <rzs at WILDBLUE.NET>
>To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
>Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 5:28 PM
>Subject: Re: [ILAT] re SIL
>
>
>> kweh Richard LaFortune,
>>
>> I sure agree with alot of what you share here.
>> Some people can't seem to see it.
>> The Evangelical/Catholic Christian views things through a 
window
>> which insists on some major absolutes usually very different 
than the
>> paradigms of the people groups they go to "save".
>>
>> Giving benefit of the doubt that most are basicly wholesome 
people,
>> an Evangelical is not necessarily and consciously intent on 
destroying a
>> culture. In fact culture and even language is a side issue 
completely.
>> He might actually love those who he views as "ignorant of 
God" and care
>> deeply in his heart for souls he understands as condemned to 
eternal
>> damnation.
>> From his paradigm window, these natives are children of "the 
fall" of
>> a literal Adam and Eve, and they need to be rescued at any 
cost.
>> I think Its important for us to understand what compels 
missionary work,
>> even if their view of reality is MAJOR different than our 
own.
>>
>> An example with own ancestors i've used before: Jesuit 
priests would
>> secretly baptize Wendat children dying of small pox when 
their parents
>> weren't looking.When they were caught doing it, parents were 
horrified and
>> threw the priests out of the longhouses in fear that priests 
were now
>> finishing their children off with witchcraft and mumbling 
strange curses.
>> Its possible BOTH parents and priests deeply cared for the 
dying ones,
>> but these priests were strange newcomers, and were acting 
out of line.
>> Even if they wrote happily in their journals about how they 
saved dying
>> children from hell that day...    to my own people they 
acted wrongly.
>>
>> Language is their vehicle for conversion of people to their 
own paradigm.
>> Wycliffe wants to "reduce" all earths languages to writing 
so that people
>> can read the Christian Bible in their own language. Its 
inherent with many
>> Christian beliefs that when "all have heard"   Christ will 
return to 
>> earth.
>> All this passion of foreigners coming to save souls 
from "sin" and 
>> hellfire
>> and convert the lost to a middle-eastern based paradigm has 
a cost
>> and weakens alot of  very important traditions of our people
>> but strangely enough it has one bright side. Languages are 
preserved and
>> even some pretty complicated thought is recorded.
>>
>> I guess maybe i'm trying to be positive,
>>
>> Richard Zane Smith
>> Wyandotte Oklahoma
>>
>>
>>
>> On 5/5/08 11:06 AM, "Richard LaFortune" 
<anguksuar at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>>
>>> I forwarded this earlier to Rudy and rec'd a response.
>>>  Some people would assert that some evangelical
>>> translations efforts have advanced applied
>>> -not theoretical- linguistics...except First Speakers
>>> are required for applied fieldwork and other tasks of
>>> science.  And the early and emerging information about
>>> these outfits over the past couple of decades
>>> convincingly alleges that these reactionary
>>> denominational translators were all about neutalizing
>>> (and you can interpret that word in its most sobering
>>> sense) the very people who were first speakers,
>>> because of fights over natural and political
>>> resources.  There is no valid argument for any
>>> government surveillance that wipes out a quarter
>>> million Native first speakers; there is no balance in
>>> which a list of languages outweighs the lives of
>>> sovereign people in our ancestral domains by force of
>>> violence.  My own family are leading heirarchy in one
>>> of the minority evangelical denominations in North
>>> America, so I know from missions; and I'm a Native
>>> person whose lineage is straght-up medicine people as
>>> well.  I was raised not to express an opinion unless
>>> it was considered and useful in some way.  But
>>> that's...
>>>
>>> Just an opinion
>>> Anguksuar (Richard LaFortune)
>>>
>>>
>>>> A lot of people in the field disagree with you Rudy-
>>>> with all due respect- folks from the aeryies of the
>>>> Academy, to the corn fields and jungles where SIL
>>> and
>>>> New Tribes Mission have operated over the decades.
>>>> This includes people who have spoken to me
>>> anecdotally
>>>> and have no particular political axes to grind.
>>>>
>>>> I suggest interested people on ILAT take a look at
>>>> "Thy Will Be Done:  The Conquest of the Amazon :
>>>> Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oi";
>>>> and "The Missionaries", by Norman Lewis.  To use the
>>>> phrase 'without substantiation' suggests that a
>>> great
>>>> deal of scholarship and actual substantiation from
>>>> international government agencies, to personal
>>>> communications by people of regard.  Who cares if
>>> they
>>>> have done important things in linguistics - Hitler
>>>> built nice highways.
>>>> Richard
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 
________________________________________________________________
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>>
>>
>> -- 
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>> 5:30 PM
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>
>
---------End of Included Message----------

Anthony K. Webster, Ph.D.
Department of Anthropology &
Native American Studies Minor
Southern Illinois University
Mail Code 4502
Carbondale, IL 62901-4502
618-453-5027