Ed, You sound like an economist. My former student and my daughter's God mother Jane Lind is Aleut. She is a world class actress who has performed all over the world including Peter Brooks "The Birds" and the Serban "Greek Trilogy" in Athens and in the amphitheater at Epidoris. Theater Communications Journal called her one of America's treasures. She has recieved most of the awards in the business. She has spent the last few years working with and rescuing the indigenous theater and art forms as well as the music and language in Alaska. There is a great wealth there and it would be crime to let all of that experience and richness disappear. Like I said it is a dark age akin to the burning of the library at Alexandria. (I'll probably catch hell for that comparison.)
Ray Evans Harrell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "futurework" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 2:52 PM Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Indian Languages: Tending the Flame > > > > Ah, for the future of some real value work. Selma sent this to me and I > > thought I would forward it to the list with this comment. David Bohm the > > physicist was trying to invent a language that could admit the realities > of > > quantum physics. He called it Rheomode. Before he died he found an > > extant language that did. It was the Algonquin of the Mic-Mac people and > > he found it because of a Mic-Mac physicist who visited him in the > hospital. > > Do you think American physicists will study Algonquin? Dream on. > > > > I suspect this will be known as one of the darkest ages of history when > the > > knowledge of thousands of cultures was allowed to just disappear because > of > > the stupidity of the current civilization who just complains that their > > children can't do a Latin version of grammar for the English language. > > Only God knows what was contained in the language of the Etruscans. > > > > Oh well! > > > > Ray Evans Harrell > > I was told by a friend, who would have known, that the very last Dorset > Eskimo, a woman, died on Southampton Island in the 1920s. Only a single > person in Alaska is said to speak one of the Eyak languages. Many small and > isolated languages throughout the world have disappeared. Since language is > the lens through which people see reality, many different ways of seeing > reality have disappeared. > > Should we mourn? Perhaps we should look at language as a tool that suits > particular conditions and circumstances but not others. As conditions > change, new tools are required, and old ones are no longer useful. The > language that served the horseman on the plain or the hunter in the bush is > not very useful in an urban setting, in dealing with the bureaucracy, or in > finding a place in the labour market. It's sad, but that's how it is. > > Ed >
