"Odd" sentences in grammars

[BJG]

What kind of simplification is this person looking for? Does he want a
shorter Apache name, or a shorter English translation? If it's the first,
then the answer can simply be "because we haven't shortened it". If it's
the second, it can be "because our bilingual speakers have legitimate
authority to determine the proper translation for public circulation in the
outside world".


2013/8/23 BSantaMaria <bernisantamaria at gmail.com>

> Dagot'ee (How are things going?) to all:
>
> This discussion brings to mind our Athabaskan family languages including
> Navajo, and my own, White Mountain Apache, with their complexities in verb
> morphology, etc. and an example of a non-Apache speaker contacting me
> requesting info on why our Apache place names can't be "shortened" to the
> way English is.  An example was the term, Dischii'bik'oh, or the name of a
> community here. It's a descriptive term as many Apache words are that are
> difficult to translate specifically into English correctly. Sometimes there
> are no English words that are equal in meaning. Though I'm fluent in both,
> I find it hard to translate but is something like, "Streak of red among
> rocks down below a cliff (or in the valley). Or why cant we just say more
> simply was his question. I found it difficult to respond accurately since
> I'm not a trained linguist aware of correct terms or theories, all I am
> aware of is that we cannot simplify terms easily. I also gave a couple of
> examples in an article I wrote years ago in one of the publications from
> SIL conference  in Flagstaff in my work with a linguistics professor. I do
> agree that context is the essence of our language and the social status and
> gender of the speaker.
>
>
> Berni Santamaria
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 7:35 AM, Claire Bowern <clairebowern at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>> I've heard fairly frequent complaints of language speakers reading
>> reference grammars written by outsiders that some of the example sentences
>> are either ungrammatical or sound strange (that is, not wrong exactly, but
>> not something that a speaker of the language would ever say). Has anyone
>> written about this? I'm looking for published discussion in particular (I
>> want to refer to it in an article) but examples from languages you know
>> would also be ok.
>> Thanks in advance!
>> Claire
>>
>
>


-- 
Bryan James Gordon
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