Biloxi update

[R. Rankin]

> Well, clearly it would be up to the members of the tribe or their descendants
to do the actual revitalization, . . .

That's my point though.  It ISN'T "clear".  Not to ordinary citizens, Indian
People or not, who have never looked at language scientifically or even from a
naive learner's point of view.  When we, as high mucketymuck linguists from a
big university go to a community to study their language, like it or not, the
community looks upon *us* as the "experts".  And whatever pops out of our mouth
in our most relaxed moments can be taken as some kind of eternal truth.  It's
true that the Army can take an 18 year old right off the turnip truck and turn
him into a reasonably fluent speaker of virtually any language in a few months.
But ooooh what he has to go through to get from here to there.  Nobody's
criticising your goals or hopes.  It's just that "in the land of the blind, the
one-eyed man is king".  We are the one-eyed "doctors" and our diagnosis will be
taken seriously, right or wrong.

> depending on how eager they are to reconnect with their cultural and
linguistic heritage.

It often works out that there is indeed a variety of different goals in a
community.  People are often very happy if you can offer, say, an accessible
version of an older prayer or invocation they can memorize to use at dinners,
council meetings, pow wows or other events.  We just need to be mindful of
what's do-able within the constraints of each individual community.

Bob