[Lexicog] augmentation and reconstruction in editing

[yahganlang]

Yahgan isn't quite extinct yet, but the last two speakers (one of
whom may be a semispeaker but I've not gotten live data from her
yet) do not have knowledge of the full traditional lexicon as
recorded by Rev. Bridges in the late 19th century. Many of the
questionable items are from domains one would expect to be depleted
in language obsolescence.

In such cases, the earlier documents can simply support each other,
and where they also fail, that leaves only a "best guess" solution.
For revitalization purposes, loss of such vocabulary items might not
be that vital an issue- if they were still important they might have
remained in use, but one wants to keep them as possibilities for the
future as well as for the purposes of comprehensive documentation.

There have been changes in pronunciation as well that might be
attributed to a variety of causes- dialect mixture, simplification
(loss of tense/lax distinctions in both consonantal and vocalic
inventories, simplification of consonant clusters and diphthongs),
interferences (changed stress under pressure from Spanish), etc.
which will have to be noted.

Bridges focussed on only one of the five known dialects in his work
(lexically almost completely identical, but with sometimes radical
differences in pronunciation). Plagues wiped out almost all of the
group he based his writings on, so it is highly likely that the last
speakers hail from one or more of the remaining dialect groups,
though they themselves deny it.

So my entries may well have to contain a great deal of source
information. The big question is where to put it- in with the
entries themselves, or as footnotes, appendices, etc. Any advice
here? Thanks for the response so far.

Best regards,
Jess Tauber
phonosemantics at earthlink.net


--- In lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com, "Ron Moe" <ron_moe at s...>
wrote:
> Hi Jess,
>
> It would help to know more of your situation. Is Yahgan an extinct
language?
> Is this why it is so difficult to sort out questions? If you are
trying to
> document an extinct language by compiling all the data available,
then about
> all you can do is create a best-guess entry and follow it up with a
> discussion of the data. Most dictionaries of this sort will list
variant
>





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