Golly Gosh Jarrod -

Speaking as someone from the Northwestern part of Washington
State, I've got a really good feeling that you should replace the
definite article within the subject line with the word 'SOME'
(although, for sure, it doesn't need to be in capital letters).
Since it can obviously be argued that many such languages in North America, in addition to other parts of the world, are actually
becoming NO LONGER IN USE - rather than simply changing. Naturally,
this is the logical result of a group of people that REPLACE one
language for another (like you or I might do if we lived the
remainder of our lives in a part of the world where there are no
others that speak English).

Nevertheless, I do like your main point (with necessary
reservations) that what we may think of as dead is merely changed.
This is much like the world, in its entirety, as we know it - is it not?

Raymond

-----Original Message-----
From: Jarrod Clark
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 9/20/2003 6:19 AM
Subject: Re: Elvish was Re: [norse_course] Gordon

The native american tongues are not really dying. I live in New Mexico,
USA (for those of you who do not know that it is part of the country,
which there are more than you, the educated peoples, would think, trust
me). There are twelve tribes (I have friends in several of them
including Pueblo and Apache) in the state and there are "scribes" who
are taking serious documentations of the languages. If you wanted to
learn Navajo, for example, go to the University of New Mexico you can
major in it if you want. If you want to talk about CHANGING languages
ALL of them are. Many linguists believe that I- mutation is still going
on in modern english, which is important especially for those learning
"old" germanic languages since it has been going on for the better part
of a thousand years. So it seems that, maybe, the discussion of
fictional languages might be relevant to the progression of our own
germanic languages. I am not trying to! be condescending but I think
you are being overzealous. There is really no such thing as a dead
language, only a changed one. The Phrase "dead language" kind of
offends me as a student of language. Sorry if i sound aggrivated I just
take the progression of language seriously because it effects not only
our speech but our culture.

Jarrod Clark

Mark Hall <markhall@...> wrote:

On 9/19/2003, "Erich Rickheit KSC" <rickheit-ync@...> wrote:

>Kevin McKechnie wrote:
>> I did not know you could even learn Elvish!!! Good luck mate,
>> sounds interesting.
>
>Best source for learning Tolkien's languages:
> http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/ <http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/>

The sad part I find to all these folks rushing out and trying to
learn/create
Elvish and Klingon and whatever else is, that there are lots of
perfectly
good languages that are dead, dying and going into oblivion for a
variety
of
reasons. And even from an academic viewpoint, so of these languages,
particularly the Native american ones only have a handful of schoalrs
working on them/preserving them. Sigh.. :(

Best, MEH

Mark Hall


Mark Hall
markhall@...


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