linguistic questions

[hmfaller at umich.edu]

I feel compelled to take issue with this statement.

No linguist worth his or her snot can think comparatively without deep
knowledge of more than one linguistic system. Have you ever tried to teach
anything about sociolinguistics to monolinguals? Do monolinguals ever tell
us anything of interest about language?

Respectfully,

Helen Faller

--On Thursday, April 17, 2003 1:02 PM -0500 Robert Lawless
<robert.lawless at wichita.edu> wrote:

> Yes, Richard. Thanks for pointing this out. I was explaining the
> difference between a polyglot and a linguist in class a few days ago, and
> I said that most of the outstanding American linguists, at least of a few
> decades ago, were monolingual. Some smartass student asked, "Who were
> they?" Being only a superficial anthropological linguist, I couldn't
> answer the question with any authority. Was I, in fact, correct, and,
> indeed, who are they? Robert.
>
> At 10:26 AM 4/17/2003 -0700, you wrote:
> > And in an amusing irony, linguists often don't develop conversational
> > command of a particular language even when they *have* developed a
> > sophisticated linguistic understanding of said language.