honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003, John Kyle wrote:
> > Perhaps John should invoke cloture to this not-terribly-informative
> > exchange after another round or two.
>
> Thank you Dr. Rankin, and I second the motion.

I have to admit that I have been thinking about that, though not sure how
to do it reasonably.  I have been astounded at the furor produced by what
I consider to be a completely welcome and innocently phrased announcement
that a respected Siouanist and several colleagues have undertaken an
intensive investigation of Hochank in modern terms.  This seems to me
sadly overdue, and more a cause of rejoicing than anguish.  Naturally,
this is not likely in any direct way to save Hochank.  What saves
languages is use.  It also won't harm Hochank, either, as far as I can
see, but it will be of immense use to anyone preparing lesson materials or
any other scheme of active preservation, and it will help to ensure that
Hochank is never reduced to the sad state of being just a name, a fate
that has befallen far too many languages.

To return to the point, I receive a certain amount of side correspondence
from members about what they like and don't like in this list or other
lists, sometimes citing specific examples.  I also have a certain amount
of experience over the years in what kills lists - linguistic lists,
anyway.  Three things seem to annoy people rapidly.

The first is an excessive number of what we might call naive
contributions.  On the Siouanist list this might be someone who went on
and on about the obvious merits of the Welsh-Mandan hypothesis and always
had several wide-ranging and not entirely on target responses to any
criticism offered.

The second is a large number of contributions on irrelevant or even merely
peripheral issues, e.g., for irrelevance, discussions of the antics of pet
dogs.  As for peripherality, some members might feel that the discussion
of pet etymologies is in that vein.  Me, I'm a bit of an etymology-lover
myself.

The third killer is what I might call the introduction of external,
judgemental issues - a turning from the discussion of linguistic matters
(or their periphery) to the question of whether linguistics or even
something else is an appropriate exercise, or to moral assessments of how
that exercise might best be conducted.  A certain amount of such
meta-topical consideration is certainly appropriate, even if peripheral,
especially if it can somehow be put in such terms that those of opposed
views are simply in error and not also morally bankrupt.  But too much of
it, especially in moralistic terms, is not really conducive to the
discussion of Siouan linguistics and belongs on some other list.

JEK