not nearly enough, karmacuetical

karmaceutical: there is some advantage to being up till 3:25am

True. But this ain't gonna be no dadgum 300+ post page thingie thar, eh?

We can't save everything.
Something has to die or be destroyed for something else to be born or created.
The more we endeavor to preserve, the more we stagnate.

Cultures die. New ones will take their place.

It's hard enough getting young people to learn the language. Now you're going to make spelling count.

/"I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way." - Mark Twain.

There's more people in the world that know Klingon.

I had a point to that, but it escapes me now.

/going to bed

karmaceutical: have to go bursting my bubble don't ya?

Indubidibly, senor.

I would definitely lose. The only Sioux word that I know is "howa", which I was told meant "thanks", by a Native American friend of mine, when his grandfather passed me the bong.. err.. peacepipe...

Having children learn to spell in their native langauge is a good idea. Most native languages (the ones that are still spoken anyhow)are still in the process of coming up with a spelling system to preserve what is left of their langauge. Having it on paper is also a good way to preserve the language for future generations.

/Aoo', Dinebizaad yashti.

Chicka, chicka, chickabee. / T'ee an me an t'ee an me. / Ressa, ressa, ressa me, / Chicka, chicka, chickabee

/cutta' cutta'
//past'ee past'ee

w-h-a-t i-s- s-i-x t-i-m-e-s n-i-n-e

/DRTFA

"Heyo-dalee, Cap'n Tarpals, mesa back!"

Monkey's Knuckle.
I hate you. Hate you so much.

Wulfhardt: There's more people in the world that know Klingon.

I had a point to that, but it escapes me now.

I think they play ScrabbLLLAAAARGH to brush up on their language.

"Yiotsa mei choktee li munlist pwa andrik."...

Nuts to their language, I'm gonna challenge that stuff if they ever play me...

I had no idea there were "Dakota Sioux". I thought they were "Lakota Sioux"(sp).

What a novel approach, naming an indian tribe after a state! ;-)

"Brilliant"

How do you spell cromulent in Sioux?

Ah Red Dwarf, is there nothing you can't do?

/Damn MPT for taking them off. >:^(

Good on them.

Is "KWIJYBO" a Sioux word?

Holding on to old unused languages makes about as much sense as the US still adhering to the English Imperial System when the whole rest of the world has gone metric.

I just figure the quoted phrase said something to the effect of "Jonathan Towes will own BC next weekend."

/Go Sioux!
//I guess.

Was I the only one who imagined this face while reading the headline?

Ever notice how there's a disproportionate majority of Cherokee blood in some who claim ancestry?

/Hunkpapa Sioux

There was lots of boinking going on since the Cherokee were so connected to the nearby white settlements for years prior to and after the relocation and eventual movement-in by Oklahoma settlers.

/1/4 Tsalagi
//Keetoowahs FTW!

House rules are so much more entertaining... how else can you score with words like "balonely" and "famouse"?

There was lots of boinking going on since the Cherokee were so connected to the nearby white settlements for years prior to and after the relocation and eventual movement-in by Oklahoma settlers.


Ahhh...so those guys did get around, good for them!

Everyone lining up to say how great it is to preserve this language...why aren't you more pissed off that you speak English, instead one of the dozens of languages it has supplanted over the years?

The more we endeavor to preserve, the more we stagnate.

Hogwash. I spent two-and-a-half years "learning" German in high school. Most people would think that's a good thing. Do I use German today? Certainly not.

So how is this different? People have the ability to master multiple languages. Adding another language to your repetoire -- even a nearly-dead language -- causes you no harm whatsoever. (The worst it does is waste your time.)

No one is saying anyone should shun English for the sake of Sioux.

If we say languages or cultures shouldn't be preserved, should that go for everything else? Should we burn all the museums of the world?

rodr3

w-h-a-t i-s- s-i-x t-i-m-e-s n-i-n-e

/DRTFA

I don't think they'll be throwing the letter "q" into a privet bush anytime soon, though.

/May be confusing an old Hitchhiker's reference
//First thing I thought of anyway
///Needs breakfast

Everyone lining up to say how great it is to preserve this language...why aren't you more pissed off that you speak English, instead one of the dozens of languages it has supplanted over the years?

Care to elaborate? I mean, the article concerns America and the only time I can think of a language other than English being suppressed (aside from Native American languages) in America is Cajun Creole in Acadiana, and Spanish in former Spanish colonies.

Here's a reason to learn Native American languages:
You learn what some guys really said in not-too-recent western movies. Get somebody who knows the tribe of the guy speaking during some of the crowd scenes, or when the cowboys meet up with a hunting party or scout. According to a Crow in-law, there are a lot of funny things said that got on the silver screen.


/our languages aren't dead, they're pining for the Bjuffalo.
//my nipples explode with delight.

nveg: Having children learn to spell in their native langauge is a good idea.

Except, y'know, Sioux is no longer really their native language. Unless you buy into racist theories of genetic preference. Most of the children learn English first.

As an observer of linguistic science, I'll tell you right now that the biggest problem the Sioux elders are going to run into is that, without a strong influence to hold it in check (like a large literature), languages drift really fast. In as little as two generations a common rule can go from being required to just plain wrong. This is the equivalent of the past tense of "break" in english being "Broke" today and "breaked" in 40 years. Or "Bruckt."

However, that same linguistic science bent tells me that trying to preserve languages is a good thing. A simple study of Japanese has opened my eyes as an English speaker to all the conventions I take for granted and how they aren't really necessary. Navajo (famous because of its role in WWII) is supposedly another language that would really bend my mind, though I haven't studied it. But value does not come only from bizarro (compared to English) languages, it comes also from near-languages (like English dialects dying all around Britain) as examples of acceptable categories of linguistic drift.

If the Sapir Whorf hypothesis is wrong for native speakers, I know from experience that it's absolutely true for secondary speakers -- I think very differently when I'm trying to be fluent in Japanese. I doubt native Japanese suffer the same cognitive delusions I use to break my English habits, but they help me alot.

Do they have to use a special Srcabble edition that includes more vowel squares etc.? Can you imagine what a Hawai'ian version of Scabble would look like since their alphabet has only 11 letters? Does the Scrabble company make special glottal stop and click tiles for Polynesian or South African language versions? The possibilities are endless folks.

Tubucular Ox I agree that learning to speak a second language really makes you think in new ways when trying to speak it. I would also say that if you learn a Romance language (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French) or Germanic (German, Dutch) language in addition to English your vocabulary expands and you really begin to see connections between cultures and societies in Europe. I would think that there is a similar phenomenon for other closely related Asian languages, Bantu languages, Native American languages, Polynesian languages, Indian sub-continent languages, etc. I know that languages and variations have been used to trace human migration through time. Pretty cool.

time for bappar: Care to elaborate? I mean, the article concerns America and the only time I can think of a language other than English being suppressed (aside from Native American languages) in America is Cajun Creole in Acadiana, and Spanish in former Spanish colonies.

Who said anything about America? Do the Irish speak English or Gaelic? What language do the Irish in America speak today? Why aren't civilizations seen in the same Darwinistic light as biology? If you don't have the means to defend and protect what is so great about your culture, from within or from without, perhaps it wasn't so great and worth opreserving to begin with..it just seemed great because you happened to be born into it.

Jin Verde: Do they have to use a special Srcabble edition that includes more vowel squares etc.? Can you imagine what a Hawai'ian version of Scabble would look like since their alphabet has only 11 letters? Does the Scrabble company make special glottal stop and click tiles for Polynesian or South African language versions? The possibilities are endless folks.

Yes, foreign Scrabble has the letter-frequency charts tweaked for the particular language in question. Number of tiles, point value, etc. Just check out a French or Spanish version sometime.

If there's special letters in some language, they'll need to be included. But as long as the language is phonetic and spells things such that not every combination is a word (probably where Hawaiian scrabble would be too un-fun, they have fewer syllables that combine a whole lot of ways into long words) it would work.

Who said anything about America? Do the Irish speak English or Gaelic? What language do the Irish in America speak today? Why aren't civilizations seen in the same Darwinistic light as biology? If you don't have the means to defend and protect what is so great about your culture, from within or from without, perhaps it wasn't so great and worth opreserving to begin with..it just seemed great because you happened to be born into it.

There are many reasons why cultures are destroyed or survive. Monotheism seems to be a winning strategy. I would argue that there is no evidence of its objective superiority. More importantly this is none of your business. They will prove their own "Darwinian" worth through their success or failure to preserve their language. Kindly shut up and mind your own business.

Why aren't civilizations seen in the same Darwinistic light as biology?

It's Social Darwinism!

The Mandarin Scrabble must suck.

mrsirjojo

You drunk? Nobody can understand a damn thing you're trying to convey.

droptone: The Mandarin Scrabble must suck.

I think it's unpossible.

I do have several dominoes-style games where there are parts of characters (like thick cards, kinda) and the object is to make characters from those parts.

mrsirjojo

Who said anything about America? Do the Irish speak English or Gaelic? What language do the Irish in America speak today? Why aren't civilizations seen in the same Darwinistic light as biology? If you don't have the means to defend and protect what is so great about your culture, from within or from without, perhaps it wasn't so great and worth opreserving to begin with..it just seemed great because you happened to be born into it.

Classic non-linguists' myth: "Some languages are better than others." If Maori is a lesser language because you can't use it to talk about quantum physics, then English must also be a lesser language because it can't be used to discuss the variations between different plants in New Zealand. Take your ethnocentrist fallacies elsewhere.

I read this a few months ago, 'cept it was about the Welsh language.

\Yay Indians!
\\Fry-bread is yummy.
\\\My girlfriend's grandparents' answering machine greets you in Crow

Goldstein

Chicka, chicka, chickabee. / T'ee an me an t'ee an me. / Ressa, ressa, ressa me, / Chicka, chicka, chickabee

/cutta' cutta'
//past'ee past'ee

You made me laugh very hard Goldstein. Kudos.