Barriers That Are Steep and Linguistic

Sun Aug 24 14:21:53 UTC 2008

Dear Kara,
thank you very much for the link.I have two comments:
1. Georgian is not related to Basque. Any attempts to link the twolanguages (groups) are unconvincing at best.
2. > The Soviets so discouraged work on small linguistic> groups that in the 1960s, the first complete> transcription of Svan — work that took at least 10> years to complete — simply went unpublished, said Anna> V. Dybo, a Caucasian expert at the Russian Academy of> Sciences.
I would say this is somewhat of an exaggeration. My library is filledwith volumes on languages with a small number of speakers like Mansi,Nenets, Evenki, Yukaghir, Yiddish, Romani, Neo-Aramaic and even Adygheand Ossetian published mostly by Nauka in the late 1960s and early1970s. It is true, however, that some languages seem to have beenpurposely neglected - Livonian is a particularly notable example - andI suppose we can Svan to the list.
bulbul

On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 3:38 PM, Kara Brown <kara_dbrown at yahoo.com> wrote:> Good morning!>> Here's a contribution from today's New York Times to> contribute to our ongoing conversation about Georgia.>> Kara Brown>> Department of Educational Studies> University of South Carolina> Columbia, SC>> ******> August 24, 2008> The World - NYT> Barriers That Are Steep and Linguistic> By ELLEN BARRY>> Two weeks ago, when Georgian troops began shelling> Tskhinvali, Eduard Kabulov couldn't stop thinking> about the trouble he had taken to learn Georgian: its> base-20 counting system; its ridiculous consonant> clusters ("gvprtskvni"); its diabolical irregular> verbs.>> Mr. Kabulov, who is 22, had grown up in a valley where> South Ossetians have coexisted with Georgians for many> centuries, but that didn't make it any easier.> Ossetians speak a language related to Farsi; Georgians> speak a language whose closest relative, some> linguists say, is Basque. Mr. Kabulov's friends were> so hostil!
 e to the Georgians and their language that he> kept his studies secret. He sounded bitter, talking> about it.>> He hasn't opened a textbook since Aug. 8.>> The languages of the Caucasus explain much about the> current conflict.>> Some 40 indigenous tongues are spoken in the region —> more than any other spot in the world aside from Papua> New Guinea and parts of the Amazon, where the jungles> are so thick that small tribes rarely encounter one> another. In the Caucasus, mountains serve the same> purpose, offering small ethnicities a natural refuge> against more powerful or aggressive ones.>> As a result, there is a dense collection of ethnic> groups, the kind of arrangement that was common before> the Greek and Roman empires swept through the plains> of Europe and Asia, shaping ethnic patchworks into> states and nations, said Johanna Nichols, a linguist> at the University of California at Berkeley.>> Medieval scholars concluded that the Caucasian groups> scattered when Go!
 d wrecked the Tower of Babel. Since> then, generations of linguists ha
ve made their> painstaking way into the mountains to document such> tongues as Svan, Ubykh, Udi, Tsova-Tush and Bzyb.>> As the field gradually explained how the world's> languages shade into one another, the Caucasus> remained "a residual problem area," said William J.> Poser, an adjunct professor of linguistics at the> University of British Columbia. Though the Caucasian> languages fall into three main groups, so far none has> been decisively linked to any other language on earth.>> The riddle of the Caucasian ethnicities became> suddenly relevant this summer, when local hatreds in> South Ossetia opened up into the biggest rift between> Russia and the West since the cold war. The Georgians> and the Ossetians both claim to have arrived first in> South Ossetia — a land that Georgians sometimes call> "Samachablo," that is, the property of the Georgian> Machabeli family, according to a report on the> conflict by the International Crisis Group. Ossetians> regard the valley aro!
 und Tskhinvali as their homeland;> Georgians disparage them as "guests.">> A war between the two groups in the early 1990s> divided them almost surgically. Young Georgians> stopped learning Russian, the lingua franca for the> entire region in Soviet days; young Ossetians did not> learn Georgian. Older people, who spoke both,> pretended not to.>> Magdalena Frichova, who monitored the conflict in> South Ossetia for 10 years for the crisis group,> recalled watching local officials wait, poker-faced,> for a translator even when it was obvious that they> understood. Over time, people began to struggle with> languages they once spoke fluently.>> "They consciously make an effort to forget it," she> said. "I've heard that over and over again. You can> actively make choices of what you hear and what you> remember.">> Of course, there was never anything neutral about> languages in the Caucasus, where great powers have> tried again and again to expand their reach.>> The Soviets so dis!
 couraged work on small linguistic> groups that in the 1960s, the first
 complete> transcription of Svan — work that took at least 10> years to complete — simply went unpublished, said Anna> V. Dybo, a Caucasian expert at the Russian Academy of> Sciences.>> This dynamic continued after the breakup of the Soviet> Union, and she recalled her horror at hearing Dzhokhar> Dudayev, the Chechen leader, cite work from her> institute in support of Chechen independence, during> the build up to a bloody war with Russia.>> "At those moments, you feel like the inventor of the> atom bomb," Dr. Dybo said. She was so wary of her work> being used politically, she added with some amusement,> that she learned to write in intentionally abstruse> language, so that "no one knows what I'm talking> about.">> That feeling of political risk has returned in> post-Soviet Georgia, say researchers who document> minor languages there. The resistance to their work> may be couched in scholarly courtesy, but behind it> lies a muscular assertion.>> "A language is the prime in!
 dication of the existence> of a people," said George Hewitt, a University of> London scholar of Abkhaz, the language spoken in> Abkhazia, another separatist region of Georgia. "If a> language dies, the culture dies as well. The people> will become assimilated.">> One more question to be answered in the calm that> comes after the end of fighting: Dr. Dybo has yet to> hear from a library in Tskhinvali, which held a> magisterial lexicon of the Ossetian language that was> compiled over the course of many years. It's a single> manuscript, never transferred to a computer.>> She is not sure, she said, but she thinks it burned up> on Aug. 8.>> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/weekinreview/24barry.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=barriers&st=cse&oref=slogin>>>>>>>>