(Fwd) Re: Recent discussion on language policies

[Johanna Laakso]

-- FORWARDED MESSAGE --

vovia <vovia at ni.udm.ru> wrote:

>
> JL> What could be the moral of this for us linguists? More publicity, more
> JL> consistent use of minority languages? More sympathy for the conditions many
> JL> of our colleagues are working in - and what else, beside sympathy, could
> JL> help?
>
> To fight xenophoby (no difference Russian-Cheremis os vice-versa or
> Arabic-American etc.) we, the scientists ( :) ) can help in only one
> way - with our work and studies. This is what is really needed. What
> can you do, e.g., with explaining to the local Russians that the
> Votyak language is just a normal, interesting and beautiful language
> (with a developed literature, too),
> if there are still no teach-yourself book for Votyak (since 1920ths,
> but those had long ago became antiquary)? And this situation is in no
> way to be explained by any "oppression" etc.: there are no manuscripts
> at all. The last sufficiently big Russian-Votyak dictionary was
> published almost 40 years ago and is rightfully called
> Russian-Russian. The only existing Votyak-English vocabulary can be
> used only as object for jokes.
> Can dear colleagues just put a bit more attention to
> the things they are to deal with according to their professional
> duties (if at all ever existed and not yet utterly forgotten).
>   Sincerely,
> Vladimir Napolskikh                            mailto:vovia at ni.udm.ru
>
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