X. Rayburn wrote:
> In article <fcppva$upc$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, AV3
> <arvimide@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>> Exactly what skills do you suppose one could use to keep an endangered
>> language alive?
>
> The ability to learn and use the language, the ability to enjoy making
> dictionaries and interlinear glosses, you know, the typical conlangers'
> skills.
Those skills won't keep a language alive any more than a stuffed dodo at
the Museum of Natural History keeps the race of dodos going. Those
skills only record a language. which indeed may be as useful an
enterprise as preserving dodo DNA. Going to live in the community and
reproducing new speakers of the language would keep it alive, but that
is asking more than one could expect of any conlanger I ever heard of.
Enjoying making dictionaries and interlinear glosses may be akin to the
joys of taxidermy.
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> ||
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