LL-L "Resources" 2002.04.20 (01) [E]

Sat Apr 20 18:49:14 UTC 2002

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 20.APR.2002 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: "W!M" <wkv at home.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2002.04.19 (12) [E]

>From W!M : wkv at home.nl

Hi.

About bible translaters and their work.
I could talk for hours about that but i won't, i don't even think we
should
talk about that on this platform.

First thingcoming to my mind reading that mail was:
What a way to look at it...What a nasty and negative way to look at a
wondefull work bering done.
I totally disagree with the mail underneath, the work of the bible
translaters has been a great blessing for millions of people.
You should have seen the smile on the face of a Nigerian friend of mine
(
refugee) here in Holland, as I gave him a bible in his own language. Him
being forces to use english and dutch all the time.
What we (the Christians) are doing is not destructive to languages, the
capitalists are the destructive ones, opening up every little place for
Hamburgers and coca cola. Etc.
I better shut up, i dont think this disscussion is the right platform
for
attack on the work of Wyclif and organisations like that.
Want to read a book about the work of people going to the corners of the
earth? : Peace Child. By Don Richard.

Some links:

http://www.wycliffe.net/europe.html
http://www.wycliffe.org/
http://www.wycliffe.org.uk/

Bye

Wim Verdoold.

Zwolle City, Netherlands.
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----

From: Ole Stig Andersen <osa at olestig.dk>
Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2002.04.19 (07) [E]

> From: "Mathieu. van Woerkom" <Mathieu.vanWoerkom at student.kun.nl>

> What is this Ethnologue anyhow?

Ethnologue is THE complete inventory surveying the world wide need of
Bible translations.

Ethnologue also appears to have become linguists' most referred-to index
of the World's languages. Probably because of its great detail: It can't
be
because of it's precision.

Ethnologue is an instrument of the Evangelical Christian missionary
thrust. It is a close companion of the Summer Institute of Lingustics,
notorious for their culturcidal activities in Latin America the last
half century.

For years these believers perform linguistic and anthropological studies
of the highest academic quality among the world's smaller languages.
They
then publish scholarly grammars, dictionaries and texts, with the sole
purpose of making the idols of their 20th century USAan Christian
Fundamentalism the literary content of the written norm of as many
language communities of the world as possible, before they die out.

Since the Ethnologuers' mission is to spread their Word everywhere, they
wouldn't risk to miss a language. So, in terms of linguistic theory,
they choose to be extreme splitters. By default, they tend to see a
language, where others might hear just a dialect. Aha! a new orthograpic
unfolding for the Word!

Thus you'll find it difficult to convince the Ethnologuers to collapse
two of their languages into one, whereas they willingly split any one
language into two, just by the flick of an e-mail, so to speak. Test it
for
yourself on a language nearby! (http://www.sil.org)

The Biblo-Ethno-Cata-Logue has appeared in 13 editions or so now. The
latest edition postulates more than 6.800 languages in the World. And lo
and behold, the number of languages in their Inventory is steadily
rising, although the number of languages in our Reality has been
radically
declining in the same period.

Some coincidence!
or some correlation?

Ole Stig Andersen
http://www.olestig.dk

Now also missioning and researching aggressively in e.g. Nigeria, the
Philippines and the former Soviet Union, their conduct seem somewhat
less malignant though no less destructive.

----------

From: erek gass <egass at caribline.com>
Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2002.04.19 (12) [E]

Comments such as I read in this letter demonstrate as much opinion as
fact.  As I wrote the other day, it can be difficult to discern where a
language ends and a "dialect" begins.

Use of the negative word, "notorious" (as would its positive
counterpart, "famous") suggests a bias against the actual activity of
the Wycliff Bible Instituters rather than just against their taxonomy of
world linguistics.

In biology, an analogy to languages can be found.  Although we are
constantly losing species, more are also being identified (a whole new
class of insects was just discovered recently).  Thus, "finding" new
languages is not impossible.

The Ethnologue serves the the purposes of the WBI, and their scholarship
is usually of the highest quality (as the writer points out).  I don't
see any necessity in slighting their motivation, however.  Although
Christian "fundamentalists" may appear to be those most interested in
learning small language isolates at this time, I think that it is worth
remembering that the WBI willingly serves other Christian demoninations
as well.  And historically, we owe much to Roman Catholic missionaries
for their work in Algonquin languages (I'm currently translating one
from the French original), and mainline Protestants in the South Pacific
and elsewhere.

Probably most of us on this list are interested in linguistics in the
purest sense.  But we owe much to those whose intgerest in language was
not primary, but rather a vehicle to another goal (e.g., religious
conversion).

One of the most sobering facts about the history of writing is that its
origins in Sumeria had nothing to do with great literature, but because
commercial transactions needed to be recorded.  Too often academics lose
sight of the practicalities which dictate the things they study.  Years
ago, I took a course in Old Saxon.  We studied the Heliand and the the
Gospel as rendered in Old Saxon.  I commented to the professor that
there was one other major document in Old Saxon that wse didn't seem to
bother with (monastery rent rolls).  He smiled and said that wasn't
literature.  He was right, of course.  But what it was was everyday
practical Old Saxon.  It, too, was worth studying.

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