Saul and Jan's discussion

[De Reuse, Willem]

Thank you very, Saul and Jan, for this interesting discussion.  This points to a serious problem in many language revitalization contexts.


Re: Saul, the reason why I object to translating "Spring break phrases" is not, obviously,  because we do not need to know the (many!) ways one can say "I am so drunk" and "where is the bathroom?" , it is just that I do not want such things to end up as "curiosities" in some sleazy men's magazine. Of course, if some speakers of an indigenous language wanted to start a sleazy men's magazine in THEIR OWN language and discuss such things, that is entirely the business of the native community.

It is all about us outside linguists not helping the jokers out there in trivializing indigenous languages.


Re: Jan. Excellent points, I think most of us will agree.  The issue not only concerns what sort of language one should teach, but also the shape and format of the pedagogical materials. I recently showed your Lakota children's textbook to a (non-Siouan speaking) language revitalization committee, and one (non-native) colleague (who shall remain unnamed) pointed out: "we cannot do that here, the elders think that such manuals with color pictures are disrespectful to the language, we need to use traditional ways, without color pictures".  I bit my lip.

Have you heard such objections to your textbooks from Lakota speakers?  My view is we do need colorful pictures for children, other methods for adults.  You teach French to children with color pictures, but you do not teach Racine and Voltaire to adults   with colorful pictures...

--
Manage your subscription at  http://listserv.unl.edu.
Due to Yahoo's DMARC policy: listserv.unl.edu lists do not accept incoming email from Yahoo.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/siouan/attachments/20140425/55ccb0b2/attachment.htm>