re SIL

Tue May 6 14:56:35 UTC 2008

akw and others,

I wonder how the idea of "In the beginning was the word..."  leaving out the 
addition of "and the word was God" is different?  I haven't read the book 
"House Made of Dawn", but I have the film version and remember the saying as 
you stated it. If I can ask...How do you see the difference? I can speculate 
through my own paradigm that "the word" or language arrived at the same time 
modern humans arrived or even consciousness of humans was realized. I hope I 
am not going off topic here for this discussion.

Jan

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "awebster at siu.edu" <awebster at SIU.EDU>
To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 10:20 AM
Subject: Re: [ILAT] re SIL

> 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
>
>
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