ILAT Digest - 20 Oct 2010 to 21 Oct 2010 (#2010-218)

[MJ Hardman]

What you say is true, and I don't think any of us are asking that the
languages be "museumized", but working only from texts specifically
translated from another language does destroy a language.  Change must come
from within, and it does, and I have lived long enough to see internal
change in Jaqaru, and the elders rant about it just like ours do (the young
are corrupting the language -- I myself so say to my young'uns who leave the
aspiration off of where so it sounds like wear).  But that is different.
ALL complain about the translated texts.  Think about trying to read the
instructions in English from an imported gadget, directly translated from,
say Japanese.  

The two problems are quite different & I heard Richard referring to the
latter, not the former.  Did I mishear?  MJ

On 10/22/10 3:36 AM, "Rudy Troike" <rtroike at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU> wrote:

> Richard,
> 
>     Very interesting thoughts -- but haven't ALL languages always been
> adapted by their speakers to meet the needs of culture change? When
> agriculture was adopted and replaced purely nomadic ways, new ways
> of living and interacting were developed and communicated about. The
> Cahokia mounds even show the presence of an incredibly organized and
> presumably hierarchically structured society in the midst of North
> America, requiring new and different modes of communication.
> 
>    I've always been impressed by the way the code-talkers were
> transported from the midst of a traditional way of life to the front
> lines of the most modern mechanized culture of the time, and figured
> out how to communicate about it effectively, incorporating all of the
> advanced technology into their normal language. The structure of a
> language does not have to be affected by culture change, and the
> structure can change even with no change in culture. If a language
> is "museumized", it will no longer function for its speakers to cope
> with communicating about and in a changed cultural landscape, and
> will stop being used.
> 
>     Rudy
> 
>     Rudy Troike
> 
> 
> [No message body text]
>