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Amerind lingo

Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2012 1:40 pm
by Perry Lassiter
Article in today's NYT about preserving a moribund Native American language. It should interest most of us, especially those on NW coast of US.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/04/us/si ... rvive.html

Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2012 10:54 pm
by Slava
Good article, thanks.

Though I like language, I often find myself going back and forth on the need to keep them all. Should we let them die off, if no one's around to keep them alive? Or should we try to revive them? How far back do we go, if we're resurrecting the dead? Latin? Sanskrit? What alphabet or symbol system do we use? Etc.

Re: Amerind lingo

Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:39 am
by Dr. Goodword
We cannot artificially support a language. A language is either used or it dies out. Heaven only knows how many languages have bitten the dust already.

The argument for maintaining moribund languages is that they contain ideas, culture, customs, etc. that we can find nowhere else. Well, if we don't speak a language we can't access these things even if they exist in languages themselves.

But languages do not contain any ideas, customs, or other cultural attributes in themselves; these are the things languages merely express.

The only reason I see for preserving them—and a dictionary and grammar will suffice for this—is for linguistic research. The hope still persists that we will get some insight into whether we need to expand our knowledge of the universals of language. I, personally, think 1600 languages are enough; we haven't even sorted through all of these.

Re: Amerind lingo

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 7:12 pm
by Philip Hudson
I certainly agree with the Good Doctor. Languages that are about to die are almost impossible to rescue and frequently rescued to no useful end. Some languages have a body of literature and need to be kept alive even if they have no native users. Welch needs to survive. Some languages are dead but provide important links between related languages. Wouldn't anyone be excited to find the PIE language written and in full form from the original speakers? Of course that is not likely to happen. Sanskrit is a language that needs to be kept alive because of its body of literature and its children languages. To me, Latin is the most obvious "dead” language that needs to be kept alive.

I have another and graver concern. There are many languages today with numerous native speakers. These languages are being deliberately killed by governments that want them to die. These governments feel they can control the native speakers if the language is killed. A brave group of scholars work as Wycliffe Bible Translators. They are at the forefront of creating written forms of very much alive languages, and then teaching the native speakers to read. They then translate the Bible and other books to that language. These translators are not welcome in many countries. I think it is unconscionable that a living language is purposely killed.

The new font we have on GW is superb. I may take back all I have said against Sans-serif fonts in the light of this font I am using now. What is the name of the font?

Re: Amerind lingo

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 12:33 am
by Perry Lassiter
I'd also like the font's name and why the l I just typed curls so nicely, while no other letters seem to. Classy.

Re: Amerind lingo

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 1:43 am
by Slava
I'd also like the font's name and why the l I just typed curls so nicely, while no other letters seem to. Classy.
I'd like to know why bold in this font is almost invisible.

Re: Amerind lingo

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 12:30 pm
by Perry Lassiter
Bold seems ok to me.