[Lexicog] Detailed scientific/cultural information in dictionaries

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 30 Mar 2004, Rudolph C Troike wrote:
> 	So while it may take a little extra time at the outset to include
> as precise information as possible, and as much information as possible
> (say, on the shape or use of a cultural artifact, or a distinction between
> similar forms), the potential unforseen future dividends are great, even
> for native communities which may want, as Natasha Warner is now doing with
> Mutsun, to reconstitute and revive their language. Particularly in the
> case of languages on the verge of extinction, the more information the
> better.

It's quite true that this sort of information is extremely valuable and
well worth the trouble of obtaining, but in the matter of taxonomy and
identification, it can often be quite difficult for a concentional
linguist to obtain.  Most of my comments here are at second hand, I must
admit, though I have encountered a few of the simpler problems personally
in my limited fieldwork and in dictionary searching.  I imagine Rudy is
actually well aware of these problems, too, of course, and was, so to
speak, beginning at the beginning, with the desirability in principle of
obtaining the information if it can be obtained.

To begin with, and here I have some personal experience, speakers may not
be aware of the precise connections between native names and actual
animals or plants.  This would be like finding an English speaker who had
heard of weasels or voles or snail darters, but was rather vague on what
they were.

Even speakers who do know what terms mean and might in principle be able
to identify the equivalents in a second language like English, may not
know the equivalent in that language and might not be able to describe it
in such a way that anyone else could identify it later.  And, then, faced
with identificational materials, e.g., conventional field guides, they
might not be able to make sense of them.  Artwork and even photographs can
be hard to interpret or even misleading.  The linguist might also be
similarly handicapped, of course, or worse so.  In any event, actual
samples or instances are said to work better in most cases, but it can be
difficult to bring speaker, linguist, facilitating taxonomists, and
materials together.

Additional problems arise from the fact that classificatory systems are
seldom going to amount to an equivalent of the Linnaean system.  The
native English ones certainly do not, though they are so heavily overlaid
with the Linnaean system as to be nearly invisible beneath it.  Generally
any non-Linnaean system is going to lump in some places, and split in
others, and the lumping may well go fairly wildly across Linnaean
categories or even across standard biological notions of what a life form
is.  Investigating the classificatory system of a language can be quite a
major undertaking, and trying to finesse it by listing Linnaean or common
English equivalents can be at least somewhat misleading.

Apart from questions of what equates to what, there may be sociological
issues, such as tabooing, or religious propriety, that prevent a speaker
from providing seemingly innocuous classificatory information at all, at
least to an outsider or non-initiate.  Given speakers may also be unable
to provide information that they do not have intellectual rights to, even
if they are aware of it.  This is a sort of analog of patent or licensing
restrictions.  And in some cases, imparting the totality of information of
a specialized nature like this might be permissible only in a
master-apprentice relationship, with completing of apprenticeship expected
perhaps to coincide with the death of the master.

All of these issues may arise, of course, to some extent, in any kind of
linguistic investigation.



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