Sydney conference! HELP!!!!!!

[Stuart Thiessen]

I would also look at the story of Sequoyah, an American Indian from the Cherokee tribe.  There are some good parallels between the situation the Cherokees faced and deaf people face today.  The parallels for example of white having written language but the Indians did not just as hearing have a written form of their language, but deaf have not had that privilege.

As I understand, the Cherokee did better at preserving their language and culture as compared to other American Indian tribes who did not employ a written form of their language.  (If others are more informed about this, please correct my comments).  Essentially, this is a parallel from history that we could learn from and use to explain why a written form has benefits.

Another thought is that hearing seem to feel that a language is not fully a language until it is written.  Obviously, that is false, but nevertheless, it is often used as a standard by majority language users to put down minority language users.

Just a few philosophical ideas I have used before.

Thanks,

Stuart Thiessen

Original message attached.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/sw-l/attachments/20030327/217d1314/attachment.htm>